The Canary Islands Authorities are contemplating as much as seven totally different visions for the way forward for the El Pajar Port of Santa Águeda (San Bartolomé de Tirajana, in Gran Canaria), the concession for which is held by Cementos Especiales de las Islas (CEISA) a minimum of till October of this 12 months. The commercial cement firm aspires to resume its allow to handle the deep water dock that it has held for the final 65 years, whereas numerous entities within the tourism sector are demanding the port be given over to leisure use, as it’s positioned in a single island’s most privileged areas of shoreline, and but has virtually completely averted tourism exploitation.
. From an authentic report by Ivan Alexander Hernandez of CanariasAhora
This Wednesday, the Canary Islands’ Governing Council has eventually seen the content material and conclusions of the lengthy awaited report on the use and potential way forward for the general public area Port of Santa Águeda, ready collectively by technicians from the Ministries of Public Works, Tourism and Ecological Transition, after greater than a 12 months of conferences with all of the stake holders and events. This doc, which isn’t binding, is of important significance for the way forward for the in any other case untouched enclave of El Pajar, on which the regional Govt must rule on October 22, 2022.
Nevertheless, the regional authorities has not but revealed the content material of the report. Spokesman for the regional Govt, Julio Pérez, defined throughout a press convention following the Council assembly, that the report will first be offered to the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, to the San Bartolomé de Tirajana City Council, to the Las Palmas Port Authority after which to the events. These embrace the cement firm itself and, within the tourism sector, Cordial Canarias Inns & Resorts group (which has already made investments within the space) and the extremely influential longstanding Centre for Initiatives and Tourism (CIT), chaired by Fernando del Castillo, of the noble del Castillo household who personal nearly all of lands within the surrounding areas.
“The Authorities has seen the doc, which has been graphically offered by the advisor (of Public Works) Sebastián Franquis and the opposite advisors, Jose Antonio Valbuena (Ecological Transition) and Yaiza Castilla (Tourism)”, Pérez revealed, explaining that the the report is just not but public as a result of “the prudent factor is for these conclusions to be identified first by the administrations concerned and by these most affected sectors, even when only for causes of courtesy and schooling.”
The Regional Authorities spokesman indicated that the report units out “tips in order that public administrations could make choices.” On this sense, he outlined “seven designs” are being thought-about as doable routes for the port, as a result of the technicians who’ve ready the doc have thought-about “the alternate options which are bodily doable.”
“There are issues that can not be carried out, like closing the port tomorrow morning; and the issues that may bodily be carried out, are usually not legally doable as a result of city planning, the rules on coastal administration, don’t permit it”, Pérez identified. Island planning from 2003 dictates that the port must be for leisure use and never industrial, nevertheless, this doesn’t agree with the municipal planning of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, which has not but been up to date.
In any case, Pérez factors out that the report, though it comprises the phrase “conclusions”, in actual fact comprises “tips in order that public administrations could make choices” on a extremely controversial challenge with numerous conflicting pursuits. However, in the end, “the Authorities has the need to generate consensus across the determination that’s lastly adopted.”
For its half, the Ministry of Public Works has referred to Pérez’s phrases on the press convention. “There may be nothing extra to inform”, he concluded.
Sustaining industrial use or betting on extra tourism
From the tourism sector, the Cordial Canarias Inns & Resorts group has reportedly invested €50 million within the space, constructing the Resort Cordial Santa Águeda and the Perchel Seashore Membership, proper subsequent to the cement works. They even went to courtroom anticipating the regional authorities to withdraw CEISA’s port concession in March 2020, however the courts didn’t agree.
Chatting with the cameras from the Informe Trópico tv program some weeks again, Nicolás Villalobos, basic director of Cordial Canarias Inns & Resorts, made the purpose that if the regional Govt comes to a decision to resume CEISA’s concession, it could be an “illegal” measure, to his thoughts, and so he didn’t rule out that, have been it to occur, his firm suing the federal government. As for the way forward for the port, Villalobos confirmed his choice for changing it right into a sports activities marina just like the one in Mogán. After all, he would say that wouldn’t he… he desires vacationers staying in his resort, not cruise ships, not to mention cement factories, blocking the view.
CEISA say they wish to keep what’s one in all three basic pillars supporting their industrial exercise, that’s, the port by which the uncooked supplies enter, which is complemented by the opposite two pillars: the manufacturing facility, positioned on the corporate’s personal property, and the limestone quarry, the shut proximity of which is a significant factor within the viability of their enterprise. In the event that they have been to lose the concession for the port, Claudio Piernavieja, basic coordinator of the corporate, defined that they must transport uncooked supplies by street: “It could imply placing a couple of hundred vehicles a day on the southern freeway, which additionally implies about 3,000 tons of CO2 a 12 months”, he stated in an interview broadcast on Informe Trópico.
On the facet of constant the cement manufacturing facility concession is the neighbourhood platform known as “Save the bay of Santa Águeda” (Salvar la bahía de Santa Águeda), in whose collective opinion supporting the claims of the cement firm is equal to stopping the little city of El Pajar from turning into a vacationer vacation spot just like Pasito Blanco additional east alongside the identical shoreline, one thing that they reject outright.
The progressive mayor of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, Conchi Narváez, has additionally expressed her help for CEISA to stay within the space, on the premise of historic and emotional causes, defending the concept that inhabitants growth within the space has grown hand in hand with the cement firm. Because of this, she advocates coexistence between tourism and business within the space, preserving and displaying one thing extra conventional or native, and differentiating El Pajar from all the opposite vacationer presents that the municipality already has.
On this sense, Narváez is patently extra in favour of CEISA’s proposal for the port than its reconversion to a leisure dock. Particularly, the corporate intends to ship a venture to enhance the environment of El Pajar, with an extension of the shorefront promenade, recreation areas with pure swimming pools to the western facet of the manufacturing facility and the development of a carpark with as much as 200 areas, in addition to putting in photovoltaic vegetation within the cement plant itself.
The Authorities of the Canary Islands, by the Ministry of Public Works, has a number of onerous work forward of it, to sit down down and speak with all of the events and discover essentially the most appropriate resolution, or a minimum of one which generates the best consensus. The tourism employers need the cement firm to depart and transfer to an industrial property, and the corporate desires to take care of an exercise it has carried out within the space since 1957. “The battle won’t finish” with the choice made by the regional Govt, says the Mayor of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, since she estimates that “the issue won’t be closed, as a result of every group will proceed preventing till a ultimate judgment is handed for his or her place.”
