Skyline Newsletter May 2023
May the weather be with you!
With the warmest and longest winter season for years, there was almost no hope of it raining before summer, with fears that it wouldn´t rain until the autumn, leaving crop production devastated and reservoir levels at the minimum historic levels…until this week…
Most of Spain has had rain the entire week so far, with certain parts of Almeria and Valencia receiving upto 300litres/m2 in the space of 2 hours, conversely devastating crops that were managing to survive, and damaging infrastructure.
Whilst completely necessary, this amount of rain in such a short period is not actually beneficial, apart from the damage it causes, most of it runs back to the sea, instead of soaking into the earth and fertilising the land.
Here in the Cadiz region, and by the coast, we haven´t had as much as expected, although there has been some heavy rain in the Sierra de Cadiz. Call me crazy, but more rain please, and slowly, thank you!
Municipal and Autonomous Region Elections
At the end of this week, on the 28th May voting will commence for all Municipal and Autonomous region elections throughout Spain. The results will be quite close between the major parties PSOE-A (Partido socialista-Andalucia) and the ruling PP-A (Partido Popular-Andalucia).
We will see who comes out on top, and which of their promises are kept. It seems they are promising everything, including cinema tickets for the elderly at 2Eur/person, thousands of new council homes, with the PSOE Government offering to be a guarantor on mortgages upto 25% of the value for young persons upto 35 yrs old and low-middle income families earning upto 37.000 Eur / year. This apparently was a blatant copycat proposal made by the PP party just a few months ago.
The social housing shortage is a major concern both politically and publicly. Many VPO (Viviendas de protección official) which are protected social accommodation built to alleviate the housing needs have been sold off by those for whom they were created.
On the one side, it allowed them to get onto the property ladder, and on the other, it reduced the much needed council properties providing affordable rental housing.
Add to this, the restrictive laws, such as the new rental law which was brought in last month limiting rent rises to 2% in key areas, which also have a negative effect. What these governments don´t seem to realise is that are always two sides to the coin, and that the more they squeeze on one side, the greater the adverse effect on the other.
A good example of this is in Cataluña, where similar rental laws were brought in a few years ago, which has seen rental properties in the region taken off the market at an alarming rate of around 54% in the last 5 years!
Watch this space next month for the election results…
Joke of the month
A pair of cows were talking in the field. One says, “Have you heard about the mad cow disease that’s going around?”
“Yeah, it´s really concerning” says the other. “Luckily we penguins are safe!”