European Union helps fund major work at port

THE Balearic Port Authority is at the moment spending more than 25 million euros on improvements to the port of Palma, nearly all of which will be spent on increasing the size of the esplanade south of the Moll Vell area (22'653 million). This project, 78 percent of which is being financed by the cohesion funds of the European Union, consists basically of the extension of the moorings by 188 metres, the expansion of the existing esplanade to 68'000 square metres which will be regained from the sea, and the later paving and development of the new area. The Port Authority engineers said that these works will require 115'000 cubic metres of dredging (which will be used as the basis for the new esplanade), 170'000 tonnes of new breakwaters for the formation of banks of protection, 700'000 cubic metres of filling materials (mainly coming from the infrastructure works), 40'000 cubic metres of concrete in the new quay and 700'000 kilos of steel to structure the moorings. This project, the contractor for which is Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas, started in December 2004 and was scheduled to be completed in 22 months. One of the recently completed parts of these works is the repairing of part the Dique del Oeste (300'000 euros), where they have resurfaced 270 metres of the pedestrian area which had been eroded by the passage of time and the action of the sea. At the same time they replaced all of the rails along the walkway which guarantee the safety of the pedestrians. The rest of the works at the port consist of improving the paving and drainage of the Paseo Maritimo, the installation of automatic irrigation and the regeneration of landscaped areas.