The eco-vandal is back and seemingly irrepressible as development plans for two hotels and resort accommodation on sensitive land in the Ria de Alvor, Portimão have been released for public consultation.
Aprígio Santos owns shares in Butwell Trading and Investment Services SA which owns the Quinta da Rocha estate on the banks of the Alvor estuary. Butwell is registered in the free zone of Madeira and is a subsidiary of Imoholding which is owned by Aprígio dos Santos.
The time period for consultation and detailed response is a miserly 20 working days between January 12th and February 6th, 2015.
It is not clear how much of the Butwell business Santos still owns as his widely publicised negative equity serves only to raise suspicion that big backers are behind the project which includes a standard tourist complex for ‘nature tourism’ consisting of two holiday villages and two 5-star hotels, with a total of 300 beds at the Quinta da Rocha site on an area of just over 200 hectares.
According to the notice from Portimão Council, dated December 29th, 2014 and signed by the council president Isilda Gomes, the development will contribute to employment, creating about 100 new direct jobs.
Butwell Trading hit the headlines in March 2014 when the Central Administrative Court upheld a conviction for purposeful environmental damage at Quinta da Rocha as groundworks illegally were started for a tourist development, the same development that Butwell now has the cheek to apply for.
Eco group Almargem fought a six year battle with the owners of the Quintawhile rare habitat was destroyed with no interim protection from the court system.
In March, Butwell was told by an unimpressed court to restore the vandalised riverside habitat and the court also imposed a permanent ban on such activities in this protected zone.
In another case concerning the same type of vandalism to habitat in the Ria de Alvor, Santos was sentenced in February 2012 to two years in prison, suspended, for crimes against nature and for disobedience over the development.
The new proposal is available for consultation on the Portimão Council website at
and may be viewed at the council Department of Works, Rua Oceano Atlântico, nº 15, Portimão during normal business hours.
The current public consultation is for the actual project, but for the Council to seek opinions as to whether it should accept the proposal or not. If it is accepted , Butwell Trading will present a full detailed project which will have a further consultation period.
See
http://www.algarvedailynews.com/news/1691-quinta-a-rocha-environmental-vandal-loses-final-appeal
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