15/02/2013 00:00
TW
0
STAFF REPORTER PALMA

A MAJORCAN Socialist (PSM) and Green Party coalition is raising a legal objection to the Inca to Palma link road planned by the Council of Majorca.
PSM General Secretary Biel Barcelo claimed yesterday that the road which will run from Inca to the Cami dels Reis in Palma, is in fact a dual carriageway rather than a conventional two lane main road. “A dual carriageway,” said Barcelo, “is not what had been agreed in Majorca's official Roads Plan.”

“It's inexplicable,” he furthered, “that the Council of Majorca's Roads Department should have presented the project without consulting the government.” He claimed that what had been agreed between the Balearic Socialists (PSIB) and its Bloc coalition partner was to build a “conventional, two lane road where the speed limit would be 80 kilometres per hour.” “After the talk about the link road being a conventional two-lane road, we were taken aback to discover that it is in fact more of a dual carriageway,” said Barcelo, adding that the Balearic President, Francesc Antich had given assurances to Parliament back in 2008 that the maximum speed limit on the connecting road would be 80 kpm.

Barcelo is now asking the leader of the Council of Majorca, Francina Armengol to “clarify” the matter with President Antich. Armengol had reportedly backed a higher speed limit on the link road of 100 kpm, 20 kpm less than that originally envisaged under the second ring road plans tabled during the term of office of the previous Partido Popular government.

Barcelo said he didn't consider that the Balearic Socialists (PSIB) had broken the road building agreement outright, but had rather been “in too much of a hurry” to get the link road built.

He said be believed that there was still time for the regional government and the Council of Majorca to retrace their steps to the plans for a conventional two-lane road and a speed limit of 80 kpm stipulated under the Roads Agreement.

Barcelo said that he understood that some people were questioning how he, as a government associate, could criticise a Council of Majorca project, but he explained that he would take advantage of the fact that the link road plans were now out for public scrutiny to complain about the project in its present form.

He pointed out that the link road has still not been passed for construction by the Balearic Environmental Commission who decide on whether or not the impact of the building works on the landscape will be acceptable or not.