Castro Marim council has decided that people do not want to move to villages that do not have a mains water supply.
With this in mind, as much as serving those ratepayers that never have been on the mains, the council has asked for European Community financial help to lay pipes to 28 of its mains-free villages.
Drones are being deployed to patrol tourist resorts in Spain.
The move comes in response to fears of terror attacks, but the drones are capable of monitoring much more.
Six Germans have found themselves in trouble this week with Spanish law officials.
A German man has blamed toilet paper for a wildfire on a Canary Island which resulted in the death of a park official and the evacuation of 700 people from their homes.
Legislation for cheaper electricity bills for Portugal’s poorest families seems at last to be biting as energy suppliers to the Algarve’s households now have to provide 24,138 customers with the ‘social tariff.’
Economically vulnerable consumers are automatically allowed to benefit from the low-cost electricity rates and also cheaper gas supplies as long as their income is €5,808 or less or the householders are on defined social benefits.
Uber was declared legal in April this year after transport and taxi unions failed to get the company stopped in its tracks.
The government u-turn included the setting up of a working party to look at how Uber and other app-based transport companies such as Cabify could be included in existing legislation or whether new rules needed to be set.
Consumers can be faced with incomplete, misleading timeshare contracts which they have been pressured into signing - consumer watchdog DECO reminds people that under Portuguese law these contracts may be cancelled within 14 days without any charges being made.
The summer holiday period is the prime time for timeshare salespeople to lure people with offers and discounts and, enticed by often aggressive marketing campaigns and the offer of free weekends in tourist resorts, many consumers end up signing contracts that they have not read of fully considered.
Banco Espírito Santo collapsed two years ago and supposedly was ‘rescued’ by the bank of Portugal’s decision to split the bank into two. One part retained all the toxic assets of the old BES and continued to be called BES.
The seemingly good parts of BES were put into a new company and the bank continued to operate, but as Novo Banco, with new fascias and paperwork duly altered at no little expense.
David Thomas, the founder of Safe Communities Algarve, received a British Empire Medal* from the British Ambassador to Portugal, Kirsty Hayes, for his voluntary work with the Algarve’s international population in working with local security forces to reduce crime.
The event at the Ambassador’s Residence in Lisbon was attended by representatives of many of the agencies David Thomas works with, including the GNR, PSP, SEF, PJ, the National Civil Protection Authority, AMAL and the Algarve Tourism authority.
