A beach, Nova, next to Senhora da Rocha, in Lagoa, at the foot of tourist developments and with stairs built on the cliff, but classified as a “natural beach”. Almost half of the hundred houses in Monte Clérigo, in Aljezur, are scheduled for demolition. All this without the respective Municipal Councils having been found or found.
These are just two of the many cases that led the Algarve's municipalities, gathered at AMAL – Algarve Intermunicipal Community, to contest the Odeceixe-Vilamoura Coastal Border Program (POC-OV), which was recently in public consultation.
Expressing itself "dissatisfied with the way the process is being conducted in the POC-OV", AMAL stresses, in a statement sent to the newsrooms, that "the opinions issued by the member municipalities were not considered and that the aforementioned document does not respect some territorial planning instruments”, such as PROTAL, nor “the intervention processes that have already been undertaken in other programs”.
In a process led by the Algarve delegation of the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), headed by geologist Sebastião Teixeira, the municipalities are now accusing APA Algarve of “institutional disloyalty” and want to meet with the Environment minister to discuss the matter.
Expressing "strong opposition" after the POC-OV's Public Consultation process, AMAL decided to "take a position through the elaboration of a set of issues raised by the document". These are four questions which, in a document dated this Friday and signed by the AMAL president, the socialist Jorge Botelho, will be sent to the Environment minister, who is asked for a meeting “as a matter of urgency”.
Two of these issues have to do with the changes that, according to AMAL, the APA Algarve made in the document it presented to the Consultative Committee, "never discussed", and with the "serious omissions in matters that had been reconciled" with the APA.
The Algarve's municipalities consider that, "in many situations, there is no basis for the proposed demolitions, inside and outside urban agglomerations".
On the other hand, AMAL stresses in its communiqué, the measures suggested by the municipalities have to be taken into account, although, as the POC-OV was presented for discussion, such measures have to be «considered in the Execution Program and Financing Plan”.
The flaws pointed out by AMAL motivate «closed criticism of the way the process is being conducted by APA Algarve».
In the opinion of the Intermunicipal Community, «there is a lot of work to be done, and the contribution of the municipalities is essential», to ensure «greater equity and proportionality in the management of the coastline» between Odeceixe and Vilamoura.
Click here to know the 4 questions sent by AMAL to the Minister of Environment.
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