One of the new bridges being installed in Alcudia is, as reported in the Bulletin last week, causing concern among businesses along part of the Avenida Pedro Mas y Reus and roads off of the avenue. These businesses believe that the bridge, which crosses the canal and connects the Bellevue hotel complex to a short residential road (calle Ficus), will mean that holidaymakers at Bellevue will be diverted and that they (the businesses) will suffer from a loss of trade. It is estimated that some 50 or 60 businesses will be affected.
A meeting with Alcudia's mayor, Toni Mir, was urgently sought when the matter came up last week during talks between Pepe Tirado, the president of the Acotur tourist businesses' association, and business owners. That meeting took place this morning at the town hall. In addition to Acotur, a group representing the business owners attended, as did the deputy mayor for tourism and institutional relations, Joan Gaspar Vallori, and the councillor for commerce, Catalina Moll.
The mayor immediately made the point that the bridges are not something over which the town hall has any real power, as they are the responsibility of the Costas Authority, the division of the national environment ministry. It was the Costas who drew up the plan for the new bridges and which is paying for their installation.
The town hall received a communication in February in which the bridge in question was identified on a map (presented to yesterday's meeting). The town hall told the Costas that it would cause problems, recognising precisely the issues being raised by the business owners and also ones for residents of the road.
There had been no consultation - with the town hall, with Bellevue or obviously with businesses and residents. Mir gave the business owners his full support but noted that a suggestion that the bridge be blocked off and only used in emergencies was unlikely to be possible. The town hall, he added, had asked the Costas if the bridge could go somewhere else (as part of the whole project for 28 new bridges).
A further concern raised had to do with an increased lack of security because of the bridge. Bellevue is already very insecure because of ease of access.
The meeting accepted that the situation will be monitored this summer and businesses will report back to the town hall at a special meeting in September to consider various matters related to the Bellevue area of Alcudia.