After yesterday’s weak announcement that only €300,000 is to be spent on repairing the crumbling EN125 eastern section, the mayors of Castro Marim and Vila Real de Santo António met representatives from the Eastern EN125 Citizens' Movement and all agreed that the planned roadworks are a just window dressing and represent a lack of respect for the eastern Algarve population.The Secretary of State for Infrastructure, Guilherme d'Oliveira Martins, announced on Monday that "emergency works" will be carried out, starting in the second half of May and that these will be concluded “before the summer.”
The mayors say the work will still be going on well into the tourist season and will harm tourist activity, residents and commerce.
Martins ‘guaranteed’ that the work will be completed before the summer but also started to line up a scapegoat by stating that the Court of Auditors is involved and that the contracts that need to be reviewed, are complex.
The mayors and protest group say the concession holder and the government have failed to fulfil a basic obligation to keep the road in a passable state.
Castro Marim’s mayor, Francisco Amaral, said the road repairs could easily have been done ages ago, but weren’t.
The €1 million spend announced by Martins is divided up between various roads, including appalling sections of road in Silves and Loulé, and Tavira bridge which is to soak up 50% of the emergency budget, leaving inadequate funds to repair the EN125 even to a moderate standard.
The PSD have a take on why the overall EN125 eastern section upgrade is delayed until 2019 - it's a general election year.
