Marbella Holiday Homes Saved From Demolition

Thousands of holiday homes in the glitzy southern Spanish resort of Marbella have been saved from the bulldozer by an amnesty on illegal buildings in a town whose name has become a byword for corruption on Spain's costas.

The amnesty comes after 18,000 villas and holiday flats in the town were found to have been built illegally over almost two decades while generations of corrupt mayors took bribes or turned a blind eye.

The properties, many owned by Britons, have now been saved by a new set of planning regulations which should get final approval early next year.

These regulations will in effect give proper licenses to almost all the illegal buildings in the town, saving them from demolition.

"We have to be sensitive and use common sense in order to find an alternative," Marbella's mayor, Angeles Muñoz, said.

Efforts were being made to find a way to save 500 homes that still face demolition, she added. Critics said the amnesty legitimized the corruption that has reigned in the town for most of the past two decades.

"They have just swept 16,000 illegal buildings and 700 illegal businesses under the carpet," said José Antonio Castro, of the local far left Greens coalition. "This is rewarding corruption."

The town hall had to be taken over by outside administrators two years ago after the then mayor, Marisol Yagüe, several councilors and numerous local officials were arrested.

Most were accused of taking bribes from developers who were encouraged to flout building laws.

Sixteen councilors reportedly shared out €22m (£18m) in bribes paid over two years, with Yagüe herself accused of taking up to €84,000 for each license.

Police found €378,000 in €500 notes in the safe of the deputy mayor, Isabel García Marcos.

"She charges for everything, for every piece of paperwork she does," the investigating magistrate said. "She doesn't do anything unless there is a payment."

Marbella's construction free-for-all started in 1991 with the arrival as mayor of the populist developer-turned-politician Jesús Gil. He was barred from holding public office in 2002.

By the time administrators were sent in, 20 out of 32 councilors were under investigation. Control of the town hall was handed to a newly elected council in May 2007.

Marbella's bad reputation is such that the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has used it as an example of how the EU should sort out its own problems before criticizing corruption in his country.