The huge roadside billboards along the new motorway that ploughs its way through barren, yellowed fields in the central Spanish province of Toledo promise a glittering and happy future to those who wish to come and live here.
Behind them dust billows up from trucks that crisscross a giant, uninhabited new town where dozens of ugly, high-rise blocks are hurriedly emerging. This, Spain’s biggest single housing project, will soon be home to up to 40 000 people.
Until recently the country region around the small town of Seseña, called La Mancha, was best known as the stamping ground of Spain’s greatest fictional hero, Don Quixote. Now the brown apartment blocks lined up on the parched plain have turned it into a nationwide symbol of a relentless building boom which, a growing number of Spaniards believe, is raping the countryside and provoking a tidal wave of corruption.
”People now expect their local politicians to be on the take,” says the mayor, Manuel Fuentes. ”Voters assume that everybody takes a cut. All they hope for is that politicians do something for their town at the same time.”
Fuentes, from a coalition of leftwing parties, is one of the heroes in a growing movement that is taking on the construction barons and what many people believe are their paid-for political stooges.
He has asked anti-corruption prosecutors to investigate how a former barrow-boy turned multimillionaire builder, Francisco Hernando, was granted permission, shortly before Fuentes was voted in, to erect 13 500 apartments in what has been sardonically dubbed the ”Manhattan of La Mancha”.
Hernando, who was declared persona non grata in the nearby town of Villaviciosa de Odón after a group of councillors there were accused by political opponents of being ”at his personal service”, denies any wrongdoing in Seseña. He is suing Mayor Fuentes for slander. He is backed by those who gave him planning permission. They include two socialist town councillors who work for his construction company and another whose daughter works for the firm.
Hernando is one of a new breed of tough multimillionaires to have emerged from Spain’s long-running building boom. He started his career selling coal from the back of a cart when he was a boy, and claims to have left school without being able to properly read and write.
Recently, he ordered himself Spain’s largest yacht, a 72m luxury design, which boasts a helipad.
The new battle against the builders was sparked by the depth of corruption uncovered in the glitzy Spanish resort town of Marbella, on the southern part of the Costa del Sol, which led to the mayoress and several councillors being jailed earlier this year. Evidence suggests that payments from builders to councillors in Marbella were routine, as planning laws were flouted to hand out building licences.
Systematic corruption may have extended back over more than a decade, meaning that up to 5 000 homes in Marbella could now be bulldozed.
Since the Marbella councillors were arrested in March, the trickle of scandals across Spain has turned into a flood, and the governing Socialist party this week finally made a promise to change the law to bring some planning control back to central government. It also said it would apply ”zero tolerance” to its own party members, instantly sacking any local officials suspected of corruption.
Coastal resorts from the Costa del Sol to Alicante, Murcia and Majorca are being investigated by public prosecutors as special police units are hurriedly put together to sift through the evidence of graft and political favouritism.
The scandals have also spread inland, following the path of Spain’s relentless building boom. In the Madrid region alone, one in 12 local councils has a construction scandal on its hands.
The Madrid regional government’s planning chief, Enrique Porto, was forced to stand down a fortnight ago when he was found to have benefited from a â,¬4,3-million land deal approved by his own department. That scandal damaged the conservative People’s party, which runs the Madrid government, but all Spain’s parties are now tainted by allegations that officials have taken dirty money.
A few days after Porto resigned, the socialist mayor of Ciempozuelos, a town just over 6km from Seseña, was sacked after being caught opening a â,¬1-million bank account in the tax haven of Andorra.
Even Fuentes’ own leftwing coalition, which includes Spain’s communists, is facing corruption allegations in some town halls.
The impact of the new building boom on small Spanish coastal towns and those within striking distance of major cities has been overwhelming. In the central province of Avila, a village of just 150 people, Villanueva de Gómez, recently approved plans to build 7 500 homes and three golf courses.
Environmental restrictions are also being ignored. Campaigners only just managed to save part of a vast pine forest in Avila this month after builders began clearing one of the few remaining natural habitats of the black stork.
Fuelling the corruption is the spiralling property market. Every year over the past five, the number of houses being built in Spain has increased. Last year 715 000 were started — as many as in France, Germany and the UK put together. Spaniards are even more eager homeowners than the British, with 85% of property owned by those living in it.
Ten years of continuous economic growth means many are now buying a second, or even a third, home in the countryside or at the beach.
Added to that are buyers from abroad, with Britons at present buying 50 000 houses a year. ”What is happening in Spain has not been seen anywhere else in the world,” says economist Ricardo Vergés, who points to a 150% price increase since 1997. ”It is unsustainable.”
With prices still rocketing, first-time buyers in cities such as Madrid must now travel to towns such as Seseña — which has already doubled in size from 6 000 to 12 000 people over the past six years — to buy homes. It is now set to quadruple in size over five years.
”They are young couples, mainly in their twenties,” says a salesperson at the offices beside the fenced-off site, where two-bedroom flats are being sold at â,¬215 000. ”They can’t afford anything in Madrid, so they are coming here.”
Fuentes says there will not be enough schools or health centres to cope with the new residents in Seseña, while the townsfolk mourn a disappearing way of life.
”We used to work the land here,” says Francisco Barón, pointing to where olive trees and fields of maize used to grow. ”Now we build, or dig up gravel to supply the builders.”
List of shame
Marbella (Andalucia) Mayoress Marisol Yagüe and several other councillors were arrested in March amid claims they demanded payments for licences and municipal contracts. Authorities suspended the council and sent in administrators.
Ciempozuelos (Madrid)
The socialist mayor resigned after he and his predecessor were caught opening a â,¬1-million bank account in Andorra.
Villanueva de la Cañada (Madrid)
The planning chief stood down after it was discovered he had property interests in the town.
Majorca (Balearic Islands)
The mayor of Andratx and a former mayoress of Calvia are being investigated by prosecutors in separate cases.
Orihuela (Valencia)
Corruption prosecutors are investigating the mayor for allegedly wrongful licensing of golf courses and housing developments.
Catral (Valencia)
Regional authorities have suspended the town hall’s right to grant licences after 1 250 houses were built in a protected area.
Manilva (Andalucia)
The mayor and eight councillors are under investigation for allegedly favouring certain builders. – Guardian Unlimited Â