'It's a vicious circle' Country's growing housing crisis fuelled by tourist flats and property speculators

Ciutat Vella, the old city of Barcelona, was once quirky and mysterious. Now it has become a parody of itself, a place from which the local population has been exiled in the interests of tourism and maturing investments.

- Sam Jones Madrid Stephen Burgen Barcelona

Doorways have sprouted key boxes, the telltale sign of a flat given over to holiday lets. A 100-year-old apothecary and a shirtmaker that stood on La Rambla for two centuries have been replaced by shops selling flamenco dolls and ceramic bulls.

Cities across Spain have undergone a similar transformation at the hands of property developers and a boom in tourist flats, with high rents driving out residents and local businesses.

The statistics that explain Spain's housing crisis are equally jarring. Rents rose by 80% over the past decade, outpacing wage increases, and a recent Bank of Spain report estimated that almost half of tenants spend 40% of their income on rent and utility bills compared with an EU average of 27%.

The crisis - aggravated by the rising cost of living caused by property speculation and the boom in tourist flats - has become Spaniards' biggest worry, and the focus of the latest policy duel between the governing Spanish Socialist Workers' party (PSOE) and their conservative opponents in the People's party (PP).

Last week the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, outlined a 12-point plan to ease what he called the "housing situation emergency", noting social housing makes up only 2.5% of Spain's total stock compared with 14% in France and 34% in the Netherlands.

He said Spain had lacked a state housing policy for almost a decade before he came to power in 2018, and accused his PP predecessor of gambling instead on "an ideological, neoliberal policy that had disastrous social and economical consequences".