It’s been an exceptionally busy summer in Mallorca and no doubt we’ll soon have reliable tourism figures to back it. But while those who profit from tourism are celebrating and looking forward to a well-deserved break during the winter months, others less fortunate are wearing curdled smiles. The chasm between the haves and the have-nots grows wider every day on the island and this becomes particularly focused in rural communities such as in the Soller valley where house prices are prohibitive, and longterm rentals extortionate, if even available.
Increasingly, it’s only the wealthy second-homer or foreign ‘breeze-ins’ as my Mallorcan neighbour calls them who can stump up the cash to bag a long-term rental or buy a property outright, and newcomers are no longer warmly welcomed as once they were. Recently, a local Soller agent proudly displayed a sign on a purchased property in the town which read: Venut a gent de Sóller com ha de ser meaning that the house was sold to Soller locals as it should be. This was a warm up warning to the latest incident of ETV signs being defaced in the town. Frustrated and angry locals who can no longer afford to rent or buy in their own valley are fast losing patience, it seems.
Aside from the Air BnB rental folk who are raising hackles, it’s also those who leave their second homes empty for much of the year. Factor in a daily avalanche of tourists, relentless traffic during the summer months, and a load of tat being sold in gift shops on the main street, the erstwhile home of useful stores for locals, and you have a perfect storm. Soller council has been holding community consultations to determine how to deal with all these pressing issues. There are both useful and wide of the mark suggestions, but what is crystal clear is that the dam is close to breaking. What next? Will desperate, homeless young people begin squatting in empty houses? Will that be the necessary wake-up call for the regional government to act, curb new licences, cull illegal rental properties and start building social housing fast? Only time will tell.