Around Majorca

ALGAIDA / SANT JOAN
The Council of Majorca has announced that as of yesterday, for a duration of approximately four months, the Cami de Can Mateu which runs from the Algaida roundabout as far as Sant Joan will be closed for construction work.

K Bypass funding

SANTANYI
The ruling government team on Santanyi Town Council is allocated 2'495'000 euros of their 2005 budget to the construction of the last two phases of the bypass which will link the ringroad with the Cala Figuera and Cala Llombards highways.

In order to provide the financing, the Town Council has asked for a loan but the government team wants the total cost to be paid by the regional ministry of Public Works over a ten year period during which time the Council will pay the interest on the credit.

The 2005 budget approved yesterday rose to 14'380'000 euros which is 2'320'000 euros less than in 2004.
Another important project to be carried out next year will be the provision of a drainage network in the town area of Calonge, a much called-for project to which the Town Council will allocate 140'000 euros. The rest will be funded by the Council of Majorca.

K Golf Course

MURO
The Supreme Court of the Balearics (TSJB) has given the green light for promoters to go ahead with the construction of a golf course in the Son Bosch area in Muro.

The move comes following the Court's rejection of an appeal made by the Council of Majorca against the golf course which was lodged in January 2003 after the project had received its first legal “OK”.

Although the golf course had at first been authorised without allowing any other commercial development to go up at the same time, the Council of Majorca had argued that the site of the course needed to be protected by new Territory laws which had come into force shortly before the study for the golf course was presented.

The Supreme Court however, has now discounted the Council's technical argument and ordered that the project be declared in “the general public interest”.

The golf course promoters, delighted with the outcome of the ruling, are now waiting for the Balearic government Environment ministry to officially put an end to plans to extend the boundaries of the natural wetlands park of S'Albufeira. This project, instigated during the time of the previous Socialist coalition in the Islands, would have prevented the golf course at Son Bosch being built were it to have come to fruition.

K Park desecration

BENDINAT
An unpleasant surprise greeted the community of Bendinat early Monday morning when it was discovered that the Memorial Park created in Calvia as a mark of respect for those who died in the Civil War had been vandalised.

The park, made up of about 100 trees had been the brainchild of families of Republicans killed during the war and set up by the previous Socialist coalition government in the Balearics.

Alerted by pupils and teachers at Bendinat school, local police confirmed that 66 trees, most of them olive trees, in the park in Avenida de la Republica de Bendinat had been destroyed. Political motives have not been discounted.

Joan Thomas of the Union Majorca party, Maintenance councillor for Calvia Town Council, condemned the vandalism as “senseless” and announced that the trees which had been cut down would be uprooted and immediately replaced.

K Channels

ANDRATX
The mayor of Andratx, Eugenio Hidalgo met up last weekend with a group representing residents' associations and traders in the area. The aim was for the mayor to explain the approval of a drainage project which will channel sewage water away from the Port, and to let local people know how long the construction work will take. The meeting followed a visit by the regional Public Works minister, Mabel Cabrer, to the area.