“I am worried about the possibility that a significant part of the 2,500 former AL license holders will add to the number of non-registered beds in the municipality, with all that this implies”, José Carlos Rolo told the Lusa agency.

The Algarve municipality, in the district of Faro, is the third largest in the country, after Lisbon and Porto, in terms of the number of local accommodation licenses, a sector in which owners were required to provide proof of maintaining operating activities, up to 13 December, under penalty of having the licenses to carry out the activity suspended.

For the mayor, the Government's decision to update the AL number “will not help solve the housing problem” as the executive intended.

According to figures provided to Lusa by the mayor of Albufeira, the number of AL licenses in the municipality fell from around 9,000 to around 6,500.

“I don’t know what those who haven’t confirmed the activity will do, but the problem is that parallel beds are beyond the control of the authorities and may fail to comply with a series of safety rules that they were required to follow in order to have a license,” said José Carlos Rolo.

The mayor fears that there will be a setback to a model that allowed “regulating and requalifying” the previous parallel beds, bringing improvements in terms of service quality and greater efficiency in the taxation of the activity.

The measures planned for AL under the national Mais Habitação program, which came into force in September last year, have been the target of contestation.