A new pier for Tavira island and sand dredging to deepen access channels is to cost €2.5 million, according to a protocol between Polis Litoral Ria Formosa Company, Tavira Council and State-owned, Docapesca.
The public protocol for technical and financial cooperation for the construction of the infrastructure has been signed off by the Minister of the Environment, João Matos Fernandes, and the Minister of the Sea, Ana Paula Vitorino.
The budgeted work includes the demolition and removal of the current ferrt terminal, which is close to collapse, the construction of a multipurpose pier, the construction of a ramp for loading and unloading equipment, and dredging in the pier area.
The estimated time frame is one year and the new pier and ramp are intended to boost existing loading and unloading capabilities by constructing a ‘modern and safer’ concrete and steel structure - hardly 'eco' but this is better than the current mess.
The funding of the new pier and will be shared between the Polis Litoral Ria Formosa Company (50%), Tavira council (25%) and Docapesca (25%).
'A study is also planned' on lighting at the various anchorages and small piers using renewable energy sources but for how long this will remain a plan, can only be guessed at, so reticent is Polis to spend EU money on anything other than making islanders homeless.
At last Polis is attending to the myriad of projects that its management skillfully has ignored in the past 12 years in order to prolong the company’s limited ten-year life which has been extended annually since 2015.
Under its previous president, the reviled Sebastião Teixeira, dubbed ‘Lord Voldemort’ by The Resident news service, the company fiddled about for nearly ten years, achieving little, and then decided to spend millions on demolishing upto 1,000 properties on Culatra and Faro islands under the island clearances scheme. This immediately triggered many long-running court injunctions and motions, thus helping to ensure that everyone at Polis kept their jobs for years to come.
Teixeira resigned before he was pushed out (here) by Minister João Matos Fernandes and skulked off to continue to run the Algarve’s Environment Agency where his work has focused on damaging ‘interventions’ at many Algarve beaches (here) and a continuing campaign to rid the region’s shoreline of properties.
The new ferry facility for Tavira island is long overdue and welcomed - and just the type of project that helps tourism without wrecking things, adds to safety and creates at least the impression that Polis, Docapesca and the local council are working together in perfect harmony.
This also is the sort of project that Minister of the Sea, Ana Paula Vitorino, should be encouraging, rather than grandstanding on the World stage in pushing oil and gas concession sales and expanding Portugal's national ocean area as a cover for selling additional concessions for un-tested deep-sea mineral extraction technolgies.
