After some toing and froing on the marina project, with a number of plans being rejected along the way, the Ministry of the Environment and the Institute for Nature Conservation and Biodiversity (ICNB) are now, according to the local leader, “hopeful” about the new proposals for the project, but the matter has already been discussed with the minister who is said to be pleased with the preliminary aspects of the project.

According to José Apolinário, for the transformation of the zone to be possible, the priorities are to remove the Galp and BP fuel tanks from the area, the second of which are still in use, and to decontaminate the site, an operation which will be very costly.

The negotiations with Galp seem to be complicated but – perhaps for this reason – are seen as being the “key to the issue” for the local authority.

Another sine qua non is the removal of the slum area Horta da Areia, an operation that has been promised and always postponed by a number of council executives, but which has now been timetabled.

The socialist mayor said that by the end of 2009 the new houses in Braciais close to Patacão would be ready to move in to, an urban development for which the council had acquired a site and which represented an investment of 2.5 million euros.

The project for Bom João and the commercial harbour, an area of 28 hectares, will cost some 400 million euros and will be funded overwhelmingly by private initiatives which will be responsible for converting the profit from the real estate business – with low density developments – into public works.

These aspects of public interest include the long-promised public walkway, a green space and leisure areas which could at last provide extended access for the people of Faro to the Ria whose waters lap the edges of the city.

source: algarve observer