Olhão’s western approach is to be remodelled to turn it from a “hitherto, little cared for zone, into a green and pleasant leisure area with gardens, urban beaches, commercial spaces and a new hotel.”
The kennels and council yard will be relocated to make way for the mayor’s €3 million building plan which will start in the first quarter of 2019.
The traditional smell of fermenting sewage wafting across the city should abate when the new €13 million Faro-Olhão waste water treatment plant is commissioned at the end of 2018 - as a reference, the new sewage plant in Companheira, Portimão has failed to remove the malodorous stench completely but it is not as bad as before.
For those with a scatological bent, the pumping plant neat the fish market bars will remain in situ to waft bacteria-laden air over tourists and locals alike.
The local Council claims that it is to build a bicycle route between Olhão and Faro, thus completing one of the gaps in the Algarve’s Ecovia.
The redevelopment of the city's riverside is the one that has many locals concerned that the city is becoming more like those Algarve resorts that exist only to serve tourists. The Council calls the redevelopment of the market area and Avenida 5 de Outubro a "revolution. This involves remodelling the Patrão Lopes garden, which was planted in the 1960s, and the Pescador Olhanense area to the west of the fish market, which all agree, needs an upgrade.
The area surrounding the municipal markets and along the Avenida 5 de Outubro restaurant street is to be changed dramatically, "giving the whole area more modern, multipurpose characteristics and, above all it will be pedestrian friendly,” in an investment of €1.5 million stating in October, 2018. ‘Pedestrian friendly,' is Council-speak for machine-cut paving slabs to replace the existing calçada.
What the Council failed to mention, is that the Avenida 5 de Outubro will become one-way in an ill-conceived move whose impact during peak traffic can only be guessed at.
Locals are agog to find that a new block of apartments near the Real Martina hotel includes several units being marketed at €750,000. Others start at a still-pricey €300,000, unheard of levels even in a city that in the past five years has been keen to play catch-up with other coastal resorts.
As for parking, there is to be a new 80-space multi-storey car park, tucked away behind the post office on land that controversially was bought by the Council despite a suspicious degree of ‘personal interest,’ as revealed by local blog, Olhão Livre.
Embedded residents, foreign and local, are quietly delighted that the Council’s earlier plans to ‘modernise’ the city's historic centre seem to have taken a back seat, hopefully never to reappear.
