Olhão’s western approach is to be remodelled to turn it from a “hitherto, little cared for zone, into a green and pleasant leisure area with gardens, urban beaches, commercial spaces and a new hotel.”
The kennels and council yard will be relocated to make way for the mayor’s €3 million building plan which will start in the first quarter of 2019.
The traditional smell of fermenting sewage wafting across the city should abate when the new €13 million Faro-Olhão waste water treatment plant is commissioned at the end of 2018 - as a reference, the new sewage plant in Companheira, Portimão has failed to remove the malodorous stench completely but it is not as bad as before.
For those with a scatological bent, the pumping plant neat the fish market bars will remain in situ to waft bacteria-laden air over tourists and locals alike.
The local Council claims that it is to build a bicycle route between Olhão and Faro, thus completing one of the gaps in the Algarve’s Ecovia.
The redevelopment of the city's riverside is the one that has many locals concerned that the city is becoming more like those Algarve resorts that exist only to serve tourists. The Council calls the redevelopment of the market area and Avenida 5 de Outubro a "revolution. This involves remodelling the Patrão Lopes garden, which was planted in the 1960s, and the Pescador Olhanense area to the west of the fish market, which all agree, needs an upgrade.
The area surrounding the municipal markets and along the Avenida 5 de Outubro restaurant street is to be changed dramatically, "giving the whole area more modern, multipurpose characteristics and, above all it will be pedestrian friendly,” in an investment of €1.5 million stating in October, 2018. ‘Pedestrian friendly,' is Council-speak for machine-cut paving slabs to replace the existing calçada.
What the Council failed to mention, is that the Avenida 5 de Outubro will become one-way in an ill-conceived move whose impact during peak traffic can only be guessed at.
Locals are agog to find that a new block of apartments near the Real Martina hotel includes several units being marketed at €750,000. Others start at a still-pricey €300,000, unheard of levels even in a city that in the past five years has been keen to play catch-up with other coastal resorts.
As for parking, there is to be a new 80-space multi-storey car park, tucked away behind the post office on land that controversially was bought by the Council despite a suspicious degree of ‘personal interest,’ as revealed by local blog, Olhão Livre.
Embedded residents, foreign and local, are quietly delighted that the Council’s earlier plans to ‘modernise’ the city's historic centre seem to have taken a back seat, hopefully never to reappear.
Comments
Oh yes, and for health reasons: The best thing is that you regularly change between heels and flats to keep your muscles healthy. Ask your doctor.
Well most of women walking on high heels are British. Why not walk on flat shoes! High heels are dangerous and bad for toes and Achilles tendons. I once bought high heels for a party at the age of 21 and within 1 hour I fell 3 x. Danced bare footed and after the party, I threw them away in the first bin I saw. Dogs and cats walk on their toes, people and bears walk on their soles and heels.
men also, but that's another issue. Even Lisbon is planning to change many pavements from calçada but promises not to mess with its iconic calçada squares. Olhao tends to adopt an 'all or nothing' approach and only stiff opposition scuppered an earlier Council plan to pave the historic centre, removing the famous patterned calçada laid down by previous City fathers to make the area look cosmopolitan and chic. Whether slabbing all along the Outubro 5 restaurant street will look OK remains to be seen but what is for certain, street diners at restaurants will be staring throughout their meals at crawling vehicles and breathing in exhaust fumes - the one-way system is folly.