20/05/2007 00:00
TW
0
Staff Reporter

PALMA
THE environmental watchdog GOB has proposed to the candidates seeking election for the Council of Majorca that they modify the Territorial Plan to eliminate projects like the new hospital in Son Espases, the golf course in Son Quint, and the commercial centre in Ses Fontanelles, all of them in Palma.

GOB sources said they regretted that this law, which came into force in January 2005, “has not had the desired protective effect” and large building projects had been allowed to go ahead in Majorcan towns, especially on the coast. “To stop these projects will mean, in some cases, the modification of the Territorial Plan with the approval of a protection law”, which would allow “an increase in the protection of threatened areas and, in some cases, the declassification of urban land”.

GOB proposed to the candidates a list of activities which the Territorial Plan should eliminate, among them the projects in Palma for the construction of a hospital in Son Espases, a golf course and hotel in Son Quint, building in Can Tapera, a commercial centre in Ses Fontanelles and the future entrance site of the gas pipe in Es Carnatge.

They also propose the stopping of the projects for a hotel complex planned for Sa Rapita and a golf course in Son Baco, both in Campos; the housing developments in Cala Murada and Cala Marcal, in Felanitx; the hotel and golf complex in Son Real (Santa Margalida), and the building projects in Montport, Cala Blanca and Camp de Mar, in Andratx.

GOB said that “in spite of the approval of the Guidelines for Urban Development in 1999, the Majorca Territorial Plan in 2005, the Natural Space Law in 1991 and the Rural Land Law in 1997, numerous natural spaces and especially many rural areas continue to be endangered by various commercial and housing projects.

According to GOB, “the Territorial Plan should have been the opportunity to assure the conservation of these spaces and to avoid certain building projects”.

GOB highlighted that they would make sure that their list of proposals for the modification of the Territorial Plan is received “especially by Rosa Estaras (the Partido Popular candidate), Maria Antonia Munar (the Majorcan Union candidate), Francina Armengol (Socialist candidate), and Joana Lluisa Mascaro (Left wing alliance candidate)”.