Victor Guerrero, as the president of the Association of Trade and Services of the Algarve Region (ACRAL), today welcomed the vote by Faro council to reject an application for a license for the building of access to the retail centre already being built by IKEA.
The license needed from Faro council is for the access from the Via do Infante motorway to the new shopping centre on Loulé council land.
Loulé council has no problem with the new retail scheme which has been challenged in court by many of the Algarve’s business groups and associations.
The Swedish group said that it has other access options and did not necessarily need Faro’s go ahead to complete road access to the site.
The ‘no’ vote in the Faro assembly on January 17th was seen by Guerreiro as "a victory for the people of Faro and the Algarve in opposition to the mega commercial complex that the multinational IKEA wants to install between Faro and Loulé."
Guerreiro said that the Socialist and Communist councillors in the Faro assembly were against the development due to the environmental and socio-economic impacts of the IKEA project.
"This is a project unparalleled in the Algarve, with 220 stores in two shopping centers and an IKEA store. IKEA would have us believe that this will have a low socio-economic impact. This is neither proven or credible, in fact quite the opposite," said Guerrero.
"The PCP and PS councillors in Faro demonstrated good sense and attention to the future problems resulting from the IKEA project that the council in Loulé should have taken into account when voting for the development for the sake of avoiding serious potential damage to the municipality of Loulé and to its people," concluded the president of ACRAL.
Vested business interests in the Algarve continue to try and thwart the Sewedish multinational's plans but consumer opinion is fully for the shopping centre which is using unused and unloved land near the financial black hole known as the Estádio Algarve football ground.
