HI Tony,

I hadn't thought of 'travellers', possibly because I wouldn't have classed them as "other nationalities".  But you are right, they do try to ride roughshod over local planning laws.  Having said that, as far as I know, all attempts at setting up illegal permanent sites around here have been thwarted luckily.

Your comment about Spaniards (possibly) getting planning permission where foriegners might not is interesting.  We are buying our property from a Spanish family and it is written into our contract that they have to get planning permission for us to rebuild  (a listed building) before we hand over the balance of the sale price. We have only paid a 10% deposit which must be returned to us doubled if they fail to do so within a fixed period of time.  This is certainly keeping everyone focused and whilst it seems like it is taking an age to sort out I certainly believe that it would have been far harder for us to try and do it from such a long distance with only a 'smattering' of Catalan!

Penny