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Olhão's old market area to become 'modern and multipurpose'

olhaomarketOlhão’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. 

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Comments  

+2 #7 Sou Eu 2018-05-27 16:33
Calçada portuguesa ist BEAUTIFUL and should be kept and not sacrificed! Ladies, if you cannot walk on calçada, with heels, then, yes, you have to wear flat – or learn how to walk in a feminine way. But don’t speak for others. What do you think, women of earlier generations wore on their feet? I never had problems with high heels on calçada, neither in Portugal nor in any other country, never lost a heel stud (I am living in Portugal for more that 20 years and I am not sooo young any more).
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.
+2 #6 Gerry. 2018-05-27 15:28
What about adopting the mock-calçada as in the airport?
+2 #5 Alice Tromm 2018-05-27 01:45
Quoting Margaridaana:
I have never understood why women in Portugal wear high heels, an accident waiting to happen. Losing heel studs in the calcadas must cost them a fortune in replacements.


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.
0 #4 Margaridaana 2018-05-26 14:47
I have never understood why women in Portugal wear high heels, an accident waiting to happen. Losing heel studs in the calcadas must cost them a fortune in replacements.
+6 #3 Landlubber 2018-05-26 10:17
Maybe the mayor is unaware that one of the reasons tourists like Olhão is that it isn't like the other tourist laden towns of the Algarve. The 'untidy' western entrance with the salinas is home to many bird species whose habitat will be destroyed or seriously compromised by the modernisation and building of a hotel. Whether the much vaunted new sewage plant will be sufficient to deal with the present needs yet alone the increased ones with the new apartments and hotel is doubtful as is the creation of beaches whose water quality will be safe enough to swim in.
+2 #2 Ed 2018-05-26 08:31
Quoting Peter Booker:
Women with high heels also find calçada difficult to walk on.

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.
0 #1 Peter Booker 2018-05-26 08:21
There is pressure over calçada from people with mobility issues. Women with high heels also find calçada difficult to walk on. If we accept that something needs to be done to make easier the mobility of these people, the task should then be to examine the alternatives. I find the only suggested alternative - grey slab paving - to be visually objectionable. Can someone invent a smooth paving that has the visual characteristics of calçada?

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