Spain: Remunicipalisation of drinking water Valladolid

The local government of Valladolid decided to remunicipalise water services. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The Spanish city of Valladolid, capital of the region of Castilla y León, recently announced that they will recover public control of water management. After 20 years of privatization the drinking water company Aguas de Valladolid, water will be remunicipalized in July 2017. Aguas de Valladolid is now part of the AGBAR-Suez group.

Valladolid is a city of around 300,000 inhabitants and after the elections the town administration is regaining control over the production of drinking water. The contract of Aguas de Valladolid ends in 2017 and the new authorities decided to regain control over the production of drinking water. The city of Valladolid will now create a public company that will hire the current 150 workers of Aguas de Valladolid so no expertise or jobs will be lost. The city already announced to invest 178 million euros in the coming 15 years to renew the infrastructure, but also promised to keep the prices low.

Lowest tariff in Spain
According to a recent study the national organisation of consumers Facua the inhabitants of Valladolid are already provided with the cheapest drinking water in Spain. The local association of companies (Confederación Vallisoletana de Empresarios, CVE) de Valladolid is warning that remunicipalisation will cost 500.000 euros extra every year.

Trend of remunicipalisation
By the end of 2015, in Spain 57 percent of the population received their tap water from a private operator. Remunicipalisation of drinking water companies was an important topic during the last municipal elections in 2015.