Home owners in the upmarket urbanisation of La Mola, Port Andratx, Mallorca, have had enough of the indifference and incompetence of the local authority, and started a petition demanding works they part paid for long ago to fix third-world infrastructure.

“Vecinos de La Mola is an initiative of the neighbours, owners and various service providers who have observed how the state of the urbanization has deteriorated without remedy during the past decades,” explains the petition by owners of homes in one of the most upmarket areas in the world.

The problem, it seems, was irregularities in a contract signed in 2009 between the town hall and the building contractor Acciona with respect to “the execution of the infrastructure project and the calculation of the fee cuotas”, leading to a judicial order to halt the project. This despite the fact that residents had already coughed up a substantial sum to fund the works.

“Since 2012 nothing more has happened in La Mola. Whilst the Local Authorities communicate their willingness to search for solutions, this has not materialised in facts which can be perceived by the residents in La Mola,” explains the petition.

“We not only drive in darkness through the worst streets of a luxury urbanization in Europe, we are moreover seeing how our assets are losing value in comparison to those of other neighbours in Andratx. The result of this blockade, which has now lasted more than eight years, and which paralyses the construction of new housing… forces owners to sell building land and properties far below their real market values.” They point out how the situation scares off potential buyers and investors.

Owners made a significant payment eight years ago to fund the infrastructure upgrade, and that money has been sitting idly ever since. The worst of it is, the local government treats them with indifference. “The neighbours of La Mola have not received any information on how the infrastructure works – which effectively they are funding – are to continue and they also do not know what is going to happen with their money which been frozen for more than eight years.”

Home owners in La Mola are the victims of local government incompetence and indifference. Mallorca is home to some of the most expensive properties in Europe, yet the roads and communal infrastructure in La Mola would not be out of place in a third world country.

The lack of interest from local politicians and bureaucrats in solving the problem is creating a public health risk, security risk, and shameful waste of water as the degraded sewage system leaks water like a sieve in an urbanised area where homes have to rely on septic tanks as if they were deep in the countryside. The environmental cost is high.

Most owners in La Mola are second home owners from abroad, which means they can’t vote in municipal elections, and rarely complain. “We have become politically irrelevant – and on occasion vilified – though we pay through the nose, we hardly complain, and are expected to resign ourselves to terrible local government with no way of defending ourselves,” explain the organisers of the petition.

“The residents of La Mola cannot stand by any longer watching their homes deteriorate and become impossible to sell at fair market price due to the indifference of the local Government.”

Homeowners have stood by helplessly for eight years with no response from the local authority, whose administration they describe as “shameful”. Although they want a quick and peaceful solution, they won’t wait much longer before taking the local authority to court, they warn.

The roads and infrastructure of La Mola would not be out of place in the third world. Are the politicians and voters of Andratx happy with that? Help the residents and homeowners in La Mola make their voice heard. Sign the petition.