06/11/2013 00:00
TW
0

Palma.—Calvia town council is going to put up rubbish collection taxes by more than 20 percent next year, claimed Socialist opposition spokesman, Alfonso Rodriguez Badal yesterday, slamming what he described as a “totally disproportionate rate hike.” The municipal company Calvia 2000 which collects the rubbish will be charging an extra 17 percent from households which measure less than 110 square metres; those properties of between 110 and 200 square metres will have to pay an extra 44 percent and those over 200 square metres will have to contend with paying an extra 60 percent.

Separate rates for non-domestic premises mean that businesses and restaurants will be paying a further 13 percent and hotels an extra 17 percent. Small supermarkets will be charged 70 percent more than they have been paying this year and the rate will go up a staggering 185 percent at discothèques and other leisure premises. “All this,” said Rodriguez “has come after years of the Council of Majorca having kept the tax virtually frozen.” Rodriguez explained that one of the reasons that the rates will go up so greatly is the sale of the drinking water service previously run by Calvia 2000 to a private company. “It was one of the few profitable businesses run by the municipal organisation and its loss will mean rates going up,” said Rodriguez. “Former Mayor Carlos Delgado has sold Calvia's heritage,” he claimed.

And its apparently not just the rubbish tax which will be going up in Calvia. Rodriguez said that family tickets for sports facilities will be going up by 20 percent, municipal nursery schools will cost an extra 5 percent and extra tuition in schools will now cost between 5 and 10 euros a session.