ASSURANCES were given yesterday in Palma that the plans for the complete overhaul of the Playa de Palma will be ready by late Spring next year.
Margarita Najera, appointed Managing Director of the Playa de Palma Development Board by the Spanish government, said at a conference at the Balearic School of Tourism (ETB) that works were scheduled to be completed in 2012 at a cost of 300 million euros.
Najera, reportedly highly enthusiastic about the challenge, said that she was regularly monitoring the fact that each month funds were coming from Central Government in Madrid to cover the cost of what she described as an ambitious project. At the same time, she claimed that the Playa de Palma was badly in need of a reform programme which went much further than an urban clean-up. She said that it was time for the decades-old two-star tourist hotels to go seeing as they had not improved their quality after nearly four decades in operation.
She said that the integral building programme included important infrastructure upgrades such as replacing the drainage system, the recuperation of natural landscape and elimination of features which threaten the environment. An important addition will be the tram system which will run from the Avenidas in Palma across to the airport and on to the Bay of Palma.