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The Commission of the Environment should be burnt down. Although global environmental problems are growing and threatening current and future generations there are governments committed to environmental deregulation, short-termism and who favour certain specific sectors.
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The urgency to take measures to stop the growing overcrowding from which Menorca has been suffering in the last few years has been the focus of GOB’s intervention at a Plenary session of the Consell Insular in March. The president of GOB, Margarida Masferrer, explained the problems that are being experienced and the worrying announcements that are heard from public institutions.
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Regulating the number of vehicles in the summer is a useful tool for combatting overcrowding. It has positive effects on the resident population and on the experience of all tourists to the island. Formentera paved the way in 2019 and obtained good results.
Here is a resumé as well as a video presentation made recently for the cycle of round table discussions “Menorca where are we going?” organised jointly by the Menorca Preservation Foundation, the Ateneo of Mahón and GOB.
Continue reading Vehicle Limit (2): the Formentera experience
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The debate on limiting the number of vehicles that accumulate in Menorca during the summer is an issue in which public interest grows year to year with the increase in number of tourists and subsequent overcrowding.
The example of Formentera has achieved very satisfactory results showing positive aspects both in mobility and in tourist improvements (that we will talk about in greater detail in a future article).
Continue reading Limiting the number of vehicles (1): data from Menorca
Views: 208
Our last excursion will take place at the end of this week. It will be to the farm, Sant Joan de Binissaida, in the Es Castell municipality. This farm is part of the Land Stewardship Scheme. It produces olives and olive oil with an ecology certification. It will be possible to learn about the production process, the management of the farm and to have a tasting of its products. Continue reading Excursion to Sant Joan de Binissaida on Saturday 16 December
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The talks and debates (in Catalan), Menorca Adrift, continue their peregrination through the towns of the island. Next week they will be offered in three places. Continue reading Menorca Adrift in Es Castell, Es Mercadal and Ciutadella
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Maria Tudurí Sintes has been designated, unanimously by the jury, the winner of the 2023 Pere Prats Prize for the Environment.
The jury considered that Maria Tudurí has all the qualities that deserve the award of the 2023 Pere Prats Prize for the Environment, based on her career, for being a woman of initiative, and an entrepreneur with drive that has known how to develop in a traditionally male world. Continue reading Maria Tudurí Sintes, winner of the Pere Prats Prize for the Environment
Views: 275
A few days after the weed killing along the roadsides of urbanizations on the Sant Lluis coast, the effects of the product used are evident where dry and blackened grass has been left. It confirms that a herbicide product was used from Cap d’en Font to Binibèquer Nou .
GOB estimates that they have sprayed weed killer along some 7 kms of sidewalks adjacent to houses. The treatment has not gone as far as the eastern area from Cala Torret, where the contrast with the island greenery at this time of year that still exists can be seen. (See attached photos.) Continue reading Sant Lluis weed killing
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For months now, we have seen in the press, repeated articles on desalination plants. They are always presented as giving water to the population, but the information hides some points that should be kept in mind.
Desalination is much more expensive
Since the work on the desalination plant for Ciutadella was delivered, the Balearic Government promised to pay the equivalent of 8,000 euros per day for the 15 years of construction. More than 43 million euros. This is being paid by the citizens although blurred by other costs. Continue reading Desalination plants: the excuse for suicidal growth
Views: 411
It is now known that the developers of certain illegal swimming pools in Menorca are also having a major conflict in France, in the Provence Region, where the city council is preparing a closure order of an establishment in the chain.
The same developers that are managing Sant Ponça and Torre Vella in Menorca (under the Group name, Domaine de Fontenille) have opened recently a new luxury hotel in Sain-Remy-de-Provence that is generating a lot of controversy in the area, which is being spread via major media outlets.
In agricultural areas of this region, it is only possible to process tourist accommodations, called guesthouses, of five bedrooms. The problem is that the hotel in question would have been inaugurated with 19 bedrooms and a restaurant without a licence or municipal authorisation. The different administrations have made negative reports that will probably result with a closure order. In fact, some major booking platforms no longer operate with the hotel.
The new establishment, called Domaine de Chalamon, is located in an area that, like Menorca, opted for strict urban planning, in order to avoid unwanted development. The authorities do not want to allow precedents that would encourage future disastrous planning.
The authorities have shown greater courage than in Menorca
Seeing the publicity that announced the details of the building (19 bedrooms, swimming pool, restaurant…) did not coincide with the characteristics of a guesthouse, the different administrations coordinated and visited the establishment and issued negative reports. A closure order seems imminent if it has not already occurred.
It should be remembered that in 2019 GOB denounced the presence of swimming pools that should be troughs for saving water in the agro tourism of Torre Vella as well as other irregularities. As a result, in 2021 the Consortium of Urban Discipline opened a file with the proposal of a sanction for about one and half million euros (486,000 for each one of those responsible – the developer, the architect and the builder.)
A little while afterwards, the Environmental Commission also raised reports of environmental breaches and proceedings have been initiated with the Island Governing Council, as the body that must enforce environmental issues.
The developers allocated all the existing buildings for tourist use and then asked to build new ones to maintain the farming activity, then petitioned for legalising water troughs made into swimming pools. The Alaior Town Council did not allow GOB to see the documentation and this obstruction has been reported to the Council for Transparency and Good Governance that is processing the file.
A case that creates comparative grievance between the Menorcans
Torre Vella continues, in the summer of 2023, promoting the bedrooms with the illegal swimming pools. It seems that no administration decides anything and meanwhile, the promoters do business when their facilities are illegal.
To allow this impunity transmits an inequality in the application of the rules (many illegal works on the Island have ended in demolition as established by law) and generates a sensation of favourable treatment by the Menorcan authorities.
What a difference from the reaction of the French authorities. There, despite the French millionaires mentioned putting forward their usual arguments of giving jobs and restoring the archaeological heritage, the public institutions have replied that the rules are equal for all as was known by the developers from the first day that they were interviewed.
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