The Administration of Roses (17480) has found a new way to increase the town hall revenues. A new tax has been implemented, based on the width of one's driveway access to the public highway. The charge is €13.16 per linear metre, with a minimum of 3 metres width (i.e. below this width you still get charged for 3 metres).

So two entrances to a villa with a total width of 10 metres means an additional charge of €136 a year to pay, on top of what are already some of Spain's highest small-town IBI charges.

The Mayoress of Roses, Magda Casamitjana, has justified this cost as being for necessary to pay for maintenance of pavements and driveway entrances, even though older urbanisations and certainly all isolated properties have no pavements.

The Mayoress has said this is the first of several new taxes to be implemented. The day the first people received the demands for the new tax, the town hall was said to resemble the Storming of the Bastille, with furious citizens of Roses making "instancias".

More to come, no doubt........

Loads of people on the Costas now having to either pay to have a Vado Permanente cert, or pay to have any dropped curb removed. Loads of house drives now have parking areas delineated across their entrance.

What is an "instancias"?

Instancia - report, citation, usually to the Town Hall.

Cynical comment: "instancia" means "it will be ignored".

No, not really.