Tabanera de Cerrato: the Spanish city with a free house and a business in order to repopulate!

In Palencia, a small town is looking for a family with children and has more than 500 students from Spain and abroad. The dilemma of what is referred to as "la España Vaciada" is news of a new proposal by local governments to try to repopulate the area. Tabanera de Cerrato is the latest village to offer free housing to other villages in Spain in 2021. The village is located in Palencia's Cerrato region with a population of just 142. The local council has recently launched this initiative, offering both a house and a business in the hope of repopulation, due to its declining population. ارض سكنية

The mayor of Tabanera de Cerrato, Luz Íscar, recently launched a call for families who wished to move to the region, but she did not expect a flood of requests from across the globe. Over 500 applicants from Holland and Argentina to the rest of Spain expressed interest in a house under renovation in the village and in the grocery store that lies on the ground floor. The idea of this initiative is that the new residents will live and run a local supermarket in this property.

"We wanted to provide a family business and a village service," the mayor told EFE during a recent interview. The house is being refurbished through a Junta de Castilla y León program and the buildings on the ground floor, with the support of the local authorities in Palencia, will be constructed. Although the announcement was made quickly, it will only be finished in May.

The mayor and her Governing Board have chosen one of the aspiring families for them and have already confirmed that it is going to be a slow process. "We're looking for a business family who seeks to change their lives and who can adapt to live in a town in León and Castile. At the same time, we found that many desperate people have difficulty and need assistance."

Also, Luz Íscar said that the new grocery shop could be used in the village and surrounding villages like Antigüedad and Palenzuela, areas that currently require residents to go shopping to Torquemada or Palencia. "We trust that there will be a boom of people who want to develop their life project in a village after this pandemic, and we want to be ready to receive them," concluded the Mayor in an interview.