The PSOE of Lanzarote has once again denounced the treatment that the Canary Islands Government has given to the island in its budgets, after assuring that throughout 2025 only "5% of the regional budget" provided for was executed. Specifically, the socialists have described this reality as "an intolerable mockery of Lanzarote" and have highlighted that it has relegated it to second-to-last place in investments, behind islands such as Fuerteventura and La Palma, which have smaller populations.
The socialists have indicated that the Canary Islands Executive has relegated Lanzarote "despite its population growth, housing pressure, and historical deficiencies in housing and infrastructure". To which they have added that, the execution data confirm that "that unfair distribution translates into minimal and limited real investment".
According to the PSOE, "that 5% that finally reaches Lanzarote corresponds exclusively to the public housing being built in the Maneje neighborhood of Arrecife, a project designed, planned, and financed during the previous term presided over by Ángel Víctor Torres," as part of the Canary Islands Housing Plan 2020-2025. "The Government tries to sugarcoat reality with headlines, but the data is undeniable: Lanzarote is left in the background, and the only things being executed are projects inherited from the previous socialist government. There is no self-planning, no new investments, and no projects that respond to the housing emergency the island is going through," denounced the island secretary of the PSOE and member of Congress, María Dolores Corujo.
Corujo recalled that the previous Canary Islands Government, under socialist presidency, planned the construction of 400 public housing units for Lanzarote within that Canary Housing Plan, "after decades without the housing problem on our island being planned for or addressed." "The fruit of that work are the 201 public housing units currently being built in Maneje, but also other projects that remain pending, such as the 136 housing units with available land in Playa Blanca; the second phase of 200 housing units in the Maneje neighborhood itself, or the 46 planned on Triana street, in Arrecife, on a plot of land ceded by the Cabildo of Lanzarote during the socialist government," he pointed out.
"That's the difference between having an island project and simply living on inertia," Corujo pointed out. "We left a series of actions planned and prepared to start responding to a housing emergency that no one disputes today. The current government, on the other hand, neither promotes new developments nor accelerates those that are pending: it simply executes, and partially, what was already done."
Corujo accuses Betancort of "renouncing the defense of the island"
The socialist leader has particularly criticized the attitude of the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, whom she accuses of "renouncing the defense of the island in the face of this evident budgetary grievance." "While the regional government allocates 5% of the budget to Lanzarote and keeps strategic housing projects paralyzed, the president of the Cabildo remains silent," Corujo stated."That silence is not neutral: it is complicity. Their obligation is to raise their voice, demand more investment, and claim the full fulfillment of the commitments made to Lanzarote. However, they prefer to look the other way rather than inconvenience their own party in the Canary Islands Government."
For the PSOE, this scenario confirms that the Clavijo government's priorities do not include guaranteeing the right to housing in Lanzarote or correcting territorial imbalances. "Talking about territorial balance while Lanzarote is allocated 5% and already planned projects are relegated is, quite simply, propaganda," Corujo stressed. "Citizens do not need grandiloquent announcements, they need public housing, infrastructure, services, and a clear roadmap," he concluded.
