Costa del Sol town privatises street cleaning, beach and rubbish collection services

Nerja town hall has voted to privatise its street cleaning, beach and rubbish collection services. It is currently one of the few towns along the Costa del Sol to provide a publicly run service, but this is set to change following Friday’s vote to go from a 100% municipal service to one that is 100% indirectly managed, by means of a service contract with a company.

“In accordance with state waste regulations, we are obliged to adapt the operation of the service in order to implement the separate collection of biowaste. Therefore, in a responsible manner, this government group has contracted a study to determine the most beneficial management model for Nerja and Maro, always ensuring the efficiency and sustainability of services, with the result being the model of indirect management,” councillor for municipal services María del Carmen Lopez explained in a statement.

According to the town hall, “This model of indirect management has two major benefits.” On the one hand, “it will improve the service, with more environmentally friendly vehicles, facilities adapted to new technologies, new containers and more human resources, which will benefit our residents and visitors, providing better coverage throughout the municipality”, and on the other “it will mean savings for the municipal coffers”.

Although the Partido Popular, in power at Nerja town hall, said in their statement that municipal staff will not lose their jobs as the services are privatised, the town hall’s socialist PSOE group, which abstained from Friday’s vote, has expressed “doubts about the savings of more than one million euros in the costs of the service and that this will not affect the quality and labour rights of the workers”.

The PSOE statement went on to say, “We don’t understand how they are going to hire more staff at a lower cost. The private company will want to make money too.”