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Staff Reporter

PALMA
THE Balearic government yesterday gave the green light to a new three-million euro investment package from central government to help fund the first phase of the project to extend the railway line between Inca and S'Enllac.

The project was first authorised by Madrid back in 2004 but has remained “blocked”, ever since according to the Balearic Minister for Transport and Town Planning, Biel Vicens yesterday.

The five-kilometre extension of the rail link will cost over 19 million euros and the joint rail improvement and expansion project is the first of many which central government has committed itself to helping finance and will be finalized by the Spring, the Minister added.

Vicencs expects the work to be carried out during the first quarter of 2008 once the SFM, the Majorcan Railway Service, has been fully consulted and given its final approval to the project. “This Government is at last giving us trains, complying with what it said it would do”, he added.
Asked about the proposed construction of the Playa de Palma tram link between the centre of Palma and Arenal, the Minister explained that it is too soon to talk about a date for starting the work, but he added that he is keeping in touch with the two councils involved (Palma and Llucmajor) and is keeping them up to speed with all the latest developments and alterations to the project and in particular the proposed route and the numerous consequences that building the link will have.

Sources at the Ministry for Transport have revealed however that there will be little movement on the tram until Palma's troubled metro system is restored to full operation in the Spring.