Former Competa mayor in dock for granting illegal licences

A FORMER mayor is in court for the second time charged with town planning offences.

Competa’s former PP leader – who spent 32 years in power – is facing two years behind bars and a 10 year ban from holding public office for granting illegal building licences on non-buildable land.

Leovigildo Lopez Cerezo is already banned from public office for seven years for other planning crimes.

But he has now been accused of granting permits for properties ‘knowing that they could not be approved’.

He is on trial at Malaga’s provincial court alongside four other councillors, the town hall architect and secretary.

The defendents are said to have used underhand methods to make it look as though they were acting in compliance with Andalucian planning law.

Cerezo served between 1991 and 2007 in Competa, having been mayor in Canillas de Albaida for 16 years before that.

In 2008 he was fined and banned from public office for seven years after being convicted of granting licences for eight properties on non-buildable land.