(Car) Parklife

Further to yesterday's note about the plan to get rid of the front line parking area in Puerto Pollensa, there is more to be said about the whole scheme which would envisage the moving of the boat maintenance area and also an upgrading of the tourist office. On this latter point, it is said that the office is "obsolete" and requires modernising. This is one way of saying that it was inadequate from the moment it was conceived, and its construction was not that long ago; three years maybe. Obsolescence occurs swiftly in the Pollensa tourist office world. Modernising should mean making bigger. The office is supremely well located, but it is far too small and has insufficient storage space, so improvements should be welcome. The only problem is likely to be how long they take to effect them. When the old tourist office was closed, a temporary one was set up in the municipal building, and the whole process seemed to drag on interminably before the now office was finally completed. Yet it was hardly a major job of construction; the office is little more than a shack.

In respect of the mooted planning closure, it is said that this parking was theoretically intended for boat users. This, of course, is far from the case, but if it was the theory before, what is the theory and indeed practice meant to be now. Where would boat users park?

The report from the "Diario" yesterday does rather give the game away in terms of the thinking behind the elimination of the parking. It says that the pedestrianisation has the objective of progressively removing cars from the front line. Of course it does.

However, things are never quite as obvious as they might seem in the wonderful world of Pollensa town hall. The proposal for the elimination of the parking, and all the rest, comes from a councillor with one of the political groupings in the administration, namely the PSM (the socialist party of Mallorca). The mayor, who represents the nationalists, says that there is no such plan, and goes on to say that the town hall is going to create more parking in the La Gola area.

So let's be clear. Here we have a councillor, one responsible for culture, which does suggest that issues pertaining to infrastructure may actually be outside his brief, making an announcement to the Mallorcan press about something that the rest of the town hall have no intention of doing, or that is how it is now being presented. What exactly is going on? Is it simply some maverick going off on a complete and unofficial tangent, or might there be some substance to the plan? The mayor suggests that there isn't. It all seems very odd.


AND OVER IN ALCUDIA...
Various worthies gathered yesterday in Alcúdia's auditorium to present the project for the conversion of the old power station by the commercial port: it is meant to become a museum of science and technology and a "great icon in the north of the island" (I quote in translation from the report in the "Diario"). The only problem is that they haven't got the money in place, or rather they haven't, as yet, established exactly how the 23 million euros project is to be financed. Which does also seem a bit odd, that is that they would present the project without actually knowing when it's likely to start.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Here are some Germans singing after drinking - fabulous, I'm sure you'll agree (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7hg9ZtwaLM). Today's title - no word in brackets and who do you have? The video did of course strongly feature a car.

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