Traffic Department assumes urban area fines in Huétor Santillán

The Provincial Traffic Headquarters of Granada will assume the sanctioning authority for traffic regulation violations committed on the urban roads of Huétor Santillán. The agreement, signed by the provincial chief Juan Diego Ramírez Llorente on September 25, 2026, is published in the Official Gazette of the Province of Granada number 191, dated October 2, 2026, with the reference BOP-GRA-2026-191001. The measure takes effect the day following its publication and affects drivers reported in the urban center of the municipality.

The origin of the decision lies with the Huétor Santillán City Council itself, which on September 10, 2026, approved the proposal for the assumption of competencies in a plenary session and forwarded the agreement to the Headquarters on September 24, 2026. The council cited the insufficiency of the corresponding municipal services to ensure the proper exercise of the sanctioning power. Upon consulting the Sanctions Unit of the Provincial Headquarters, it reported that there is no objection to processing the files that may be initiated.

The legal basis for the assumption

The resolution is based on Article 84.4, third paragraph, of the consolidated text of the Law on Traffic, Motor Vehicle Circulation and Road Safety, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 6/2015, of October 30. This provision establishes that provincial Traffic chiefs shall assume the competence of mayors when, for justified reasons or due to the insufficiency of municipal services, it cannot be exercised by them.

The document further recalls that Article 7 of the same law attributes to municipalities the regulation, organization, management, surveillance, and discipline of traffic on urban roads under their ownership, as well as the reporting and sanctioning of violations, and that Article 25.2 of Law 7/1985, Regulating the Bases of the Local Regime, includes this matter among local inherent competencies. The Headquarters considers the justified reasons and the exceptional nature of the request made by the municipality to be proven.

What Traffic assumes and what remains municipal

The agreement precisely delimits the distribution of functions:

• The Provincial Traffic Headquarters of Granada assumes the sanctioning of violations of traffic, circulation, and road safety regulations committed on urban roads within the municipal district.
• It also assumes the instruction of the corresponding sanctioning proceedings, as the instruction always corresponds to the Administration that adopts the resolution.
• The organization and control of traffic on the urban roads of Huétor Santillán continues to be a municipal competence.
• The surveillance and reporting of violations committed on said roads likewise remain in the hands of the City Council.

Without economic compensation and with indefinite validity

The resolution specifies that the General Directorate of Traffic (Dirección General de Tráfico) will not pay any economic compensation to the City Council of Huétor Santillán for the exercise of this competence. The agreement is published in the provincial bulletin in application of Article 45 of Law 39/2015, of October 1, on the Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations.

The exercise of the assumed competence will be maintained as long as the City Council does not make an express statement to reassume it or the Provincial Headquarters itself determines the disappearance of the circumstances that motivated the exceptional assumption. The document appears on pages 5 and 6 of the bulletin, within the State Administration section, under file number 2026049847.

The decision transfers the processing and resolution of traffic fines in the urban center of Huétor Santillán to the State Administration, meaning that drivers reported in the municipality will stop handling their files with the City Council and will do so with the Provincial Traffic Headquarters of Granada. The change does not alter who monitors and reports on the streets, but it does change who sanctions and resolves, and it is motivated by the council’s lack of means to sustain that task.

Source: Official Bulletin of the Province of Granada, no. 191, October 2, 2026, State Administration, pp. 5-6 (official reference: BOP-GRA-2026-191001).