Penalties now apply for not using or not cancelling camping permits

The Ministry of the Environment is responding to ongoing complaints and has decided to penalize people who obtain permits for municipal campsites and don’t use them, and those who request authorisation for more people than actually go.

For now, the penalties that it has decided to impose will only be applied in the Llanos de La Mimbre (Tamadaba) area in Gran Canaria, whose rules of use and enjoyment were published yesterday in the Official Gazette of the Province (BOP), but will be progressively extended to the rest of areas managed by the department and whose use is free.

These are: Altos del Pozo, Morro de Santiago, Bailico, Corral de Los Juncos, Presa de Las Niñas, Llanos del Salado, and Llanos de La Pez.

The head of the Ministry, Inés Jiménez, explains that this measure will be imposed when permits are granted by the Cabildo's online system, especially on the dates with the most demand, and users don’t go, have booked other areas, or only part of the group goes, as this means other people who want to use the facility can’t even though their capacity is not full.

"If due to unforeseen circumstances, the permit is not going to be used, it must be cancelled within a period of 48 hours before the date booked on the web. If the cancellation is within 48 hours of the day you booked, in addition to cancelling, you must send an email providing supporting documentation to avoid being penalised.”

PENALTIES:
In case of non-compliance, the Cabildo will penalize the person requesting the permit by not allowing them to book anything for four months, which will be extended to a year if it happens twice, i.e. when the cancellation rules are not complied with more than once in a year. In addition, under no circumstances will more than three unjustified cancellations be allowed during a year, which will lead to an indefinite ban.

The penalties also apply if the permit is going to be used, but less than 60% of the group aren’t going to attend. In this case, it must be cancelled at least 48 hours before and then a new request can be made with the actual number of attendees, depending on availability. If you don’t comply with this you will be banned for 3 months, and again a year for repeating the offence.