"The new industrial estate in Alcúdia. There is a lot of preparatory clearance work going on, the actual construction due to start in October. The environmental issue, especially important given its proximity to the Albufera nature park, has led - or rather will lead - to this “polígono” being granted an environmental certification, the first of its kind in Europe. Specifically, 25% of its total area will be “green”, a significantly higher proportion than other estates on the island. Rainwater will also be collected in subterranean deposits and used for around 50% of the estate’s water consumption, while materials used in the actual construction will be recycled. Bet it still doesn’t satisfy the environmental lobby."
Satisfying the environmental lobby has, as things have turned out, been the least of the worries. Alcúdia has its own Palacio de Congresos, a will-it, won't-it construction, and has had for even longer than the Palacio has been partially built, paralysed and restarted. But at least the Palacio has been under construction. Alcúdia has an industrial estate with no industry. That's because no industry has as such ever been built.
Ca na Lloreta, which is its name, has always been controversial. Its 220,000 square metres were created on what were formerly woods and farm land, authorisation from the Council of Mallorca having been given in 2004. The environmental concerns were two-fold: the loss of that land and those woods and Albufera. It was with these in mind that the developers, Construcciones Bartolomé Llompart, were so careful to make the project as eco-friendly as possible. In truth, though it might have been considered environmentally damaging, it was unlikely to ever have been as harmful as what is right next to it - the Es Murterar power station - and in terms of aesthetics, when there is the enormous chimney to one side and the long-abandoned ruin of the old Es Foguero night club to the other, what harm would some industrial buildings do?
When I noted in August 2006 that construction was about to start, this was only construction on the industrial estate's layout. The roads were made, street lights were put up and once they had been, everything came to a halt. For eight years the estate has been empty, a criss-cross of roads leading to nothing. Activity since then has mostly been confined to scoundrels nicking copper cable and a road block being erected at the entrance to deter further theft.
In the summer of 2008, Alcúdia Town Hall gave serious consideration to start granting licences for the building of industrial units. This was despite the fact that there were question marks over Ca na Lloreta. Firstly, the town hall hadn't officially "received" the development, meaning that it didn't formally have responsibility for services. The delay in it taking on this responsibility had to do with the fact that there was no agreement as to the electricity supply. Secondly, there were doubts as to just how much interest there was. The then mayor, Miguel Ferrer, admitted that demand was not high, but he thought that up to twelve units might be built during a first phase. This uncertainty was a little curious, as it was also being said that a number of businesses had already acquired plots on the estate, valued at some 600,000 euros. And they were keen to get on with construction in order to get some quick return on their investment.
But the construction and the assumption of responsibility of services continued to be delayed, and that was because of the problems surrounding the electricity supply.
There were different versions of this story. One had to do with the national industry ministry not having given necessary authorisation to Endesa to undertake work to guarantee the electricity supply required to power the industrial estate. Another was that Llompart needed to build a substation with power greater than would be normal and that negotiations were ongoing with Endesa. Both of these versions may have been accurate, but what really caused the delay was a stand-off between Endesa and Red Electrica. It is, after all, Red Electrica which installs infrastructure; Endesa is the distributor.
Three years on from all this, in June 2011, it was announced that the two companies had reached an agreement regarding the building of the substation. It was two more years, almost to the day in June 2013, that we learned that Red Electrica had committed to spending 33 million euros on two new substations and high-voltage infrastructure. One of these was the Sant Marti substation in the industrial estate.
It would be wrong to suggest that all the fuss in Puerto Alcúdia regarding the laying of high-voltage cables is solely the result of the need to build the substation in order to power the industrial estate to a level that Llompart required, but that requirement has been a factor. It is clear that it has been, because the cable work has now allowed the town hall to finally go ahead and grant those licences for building to commence and for it to assume responsibility for the provision of services.
So any time in the near future, we can anticipate that the first units will begin to appear. And the question that was being asked in 2008 will crop up again. Just how much interest really is there? And what sort of interest will it be? If Ca na Lloreta is like other industrial estates, there will be entertainment centres and showrooms for this and that. As for industry, who can tell?
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