A court in Manacor is investigating the rural commercial buildings that the Campos City Council allowed.
The investigation was opened following a complaint from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, which sees evidence of a crime.
PalmThe Court of Instruction number 1 of Manacor has been investigating for months the case of commercial and industrial buildings that operated for years in Campos without the required license. Some of these buildings were located on rural land or land not zoned for industrial use, in violation of municipal and regional urban planning regulations. Even so, they remained open for years without the Campos Town Council taking any action to regulate the situation. For this reason, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office filed a lawsuit after studying the case for more than a year and finding "indications of a crime." Now, the courts will try to determine if a scheme actually existed and, above all, if Campos turned a blind eye instead of processing the corresponding complaints regarding the commercial use of infrastructure on rural land. The case reached the Prosecutor's Office from the Balearic Islands Office for the Prevention and Fight against Corruption (OAIB), which had been investigating it since 2022. as explained by the ARA BalearesIn a damning report, the OAIB (Balearic Islands Office for the Administration of Urban Planning) asserted that the Campos Town Council had failed to act and had allowed the proliferation of rural buildings at the town's entrance, operating as commercial establishments—an activity specifically prohibited by regulations. At least 18 establishments were operating without authorization, and two workshops had carried out illegal expansions. However, previous municipal inspections indicated, apparently falsely according to the OAIB, that these were warehouses with no commercial activity, a contradiction that raised suspicions of document forgery and urban planning malfeasance. When the case came to light, all eyes turned to Sebastià Sureda, the Campos Town Council's Urban Planning Councilor between 2015 and 2019, who had to resign as the Government's Director General of Emergencies when the scandal broke—at least for the time being. The Office linked him to the scheme to allow or fail to prevent the ships from operating without a license. To justify his inaction, l'Campos Town Hall admitted that it had consented These practices somehow. The Anti-Corruption Office requested information from several municipal technicians and former councilors, but, for the moment, the only person formally under investigation is a local police officer from Campos.
It should be remembered that the PP government, with the support of Vox, promoted the closure of the Anti-Corruption Office, considering it not a priority and that its work represented duplication. The decision was made precisely when this case appeared in the media.
The case is being handled by the Prosecutor's Office in 2023
The case was referred to the Balearic Islands Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office in 2023 for preliminary proceedings—this body confirmed in April 2024 that the investigation remained open. Meanwhile, the Campos City Council approved a specific amendment to the subsidiary planning regulations in May 2024 to expedite the regularization of the buildings and the land, which was approved by the Island Commission for Territorial Planning the following June. This measure sparked considerable controversy, as the Socialist group accused the People's Party (PP) and Vox of "tailor-made urban planning" to legalize previously illegal activities. According to legal experts consulted by ARA Baleares, this case highlights "the importance of properly controlling industrial and commercial activities," since the agricultural building format has been a "sieve" for activities in different municipalities, within which "countless chalets built in the last three years have also been permitted under municipal administration." Now, depending on what can be proven in court, it will be clarified whether there was any preferential treatment of business owners by the Campos City Council or if, in any case, there was an intentional dereliction of duty. Above all, it will be determined whether any municipal official or politician should be held accountable for these events.
