Court ruling on Lanzarote water rates

The Canarian Supreme Court has ruled that Lanzarote’s water supplier, Canal Gestion, has the right to update water rates from 2020 to 2023 and has ordered the island’s Water Consortium to take “the necessary measures” to rectify the situation.

The original contract signed between the Water Consortium and Canal Gestión gave Canal the right to raise water rates based on the consumer price index plus 1% from 2017 onwards. However, this was never done and an earlier attempt by Canal to apply the CPI +1% formula from 2017-2019 was rejected by the Canarian Pricing Commission.

Oswaldo Betancort, President of the Water Consortium, claims that the Pricing Commission has made a similar decision applying to the 2020-2023 period, and that the Supreme Court’s ruling will not mean a rise in water rates for Lanzarote residents.