Troubled Waters In Alcudia: Port developments - part one

You wait years for controversies to arise in Alcudia's port, and then two of them come along together. They involve the marina, Alcudiamar, and the area between the fishermen's pier and the commercial port's terminal: much, therefore, of the port zone.

Both of them have the involvement of the Balearic Ports Authority. While it doesn't operate Alcudiamar - it has always been private - it does have a say: it is the authority which grants the concession. Alcudiamar has negotiated an extension of the concession until 2030, an aspect of this being an investment project for a further 12,000 square metres of dock. No one, apart from Alcudiamar, seems to actually want this, a local movement - Salvem el Moll (save the port) - has been formed to stop it, while the town hall is against it as well.

A first independent report into the project has established that it would not make any difference to the movement of sediments. A further one is needed to assess what might happen to water quality, and we are talking here the potential impact on the sea water where the beach starts and where the sea is exceptionally shallow. The town hall, in the form of the two main parties - El Pi and PSOE - has declared itself in favour of a project for marina improvement but not the one being planned. It is worried about water quality and Alcudia's array of certification for standards plus the Blue Flag.

Gent per Alcudia provides the other councillor to the ruling administration. This combination of Més, the Republican Left and independents wants the immediate cessation of any work at the marina. So, the town hall is, to an extent, divided. The environmentalists, GOB, have added their views: they want an immediate halt to any expansion.

El Pi and PSOE can overrule any opposition from Gent, as they have enough councillors to do so, but the Gent councillor, Tòmas Adrover, was brought into the administration with specific responsibility for the environment. It would now seem odd if, when a major environmental issue arises, his views were to be overlooked. These coincide with GOB and with the regional government's environment directorate: there has to be an environmental impact assessment report by Alcudiamar, something that would be subject to subsequent all manner of scrutiny and probably challenges.

At the back of all this is the inevitable collision of private interests and those of the public (some of them anyway). And in Alcudiamar one has the greatest of these interests in the port. Those involved with it basically run the port: that part of it which isn't run by the state in the form of the ports authority. The clash has echoes of other port developments in Mallorca, such as El Molinar in Palma and Porto Colom, both of them with "salvem" groups: Porto Colom's is the more vociferous, suggesting that the wishes of residents (and tourists) are being trampled over by the private interests of the yacht club.

The amounts that Alcudiamar will be handing over because of the concession extension may also have something to do with murmurings regarding rents. One understands that a well-known restaurant is considering packing up and going.

A further background element is the rude health of the nautical industry and indeed the regional government's support for it. The administration considers the industry to be a "strategic" one for generating employment, enhancing Mallorca's general image and tackling tourism seasonality, but the industry needs to therefore grow in different ways, and one of them is via the space it occupies. As ever, the environmental dimension is coming up against the needs of tourism. Reconciling the two is never easy; it is often impossible.

The other development, one led by the ports authority, is not one which, on the face of it, involves private interests. As a division of national government it shouldn't be. Yet there do appear to be such interests. It's a story for tomorrow.

Photo: A view taken from Alcudiamar.

Separate Development In Alcúdia

Something definitely is stirring, nautically speaking, in Alcúdia. The appearance of "Sea Cloud" may have been a bit of a non-event, but in a week or so's time, there is to be an event which is anything but non. It is the 28th staging of the Trofeu Almirall Comte de Barcelona, a regatta for boats built before 1950 (or replicas thereof), and it is serious stuff.

So serious is it that you wonder why little is being said about it. There may yet of course be some grand fanfare and some grand splurge of publicity, but the only notice locally that I have seen for it is in a PDF for Alcúdia's "Agost a la fresca" which apparently is only available online.

The website for the regatta, that of the Fundación Hispania, does a throughly good gushing job in bigging up Alcúdia and its advantages for sailing: "insuperable conditions for sailing"; "exceptional wind"; "beauty of the bay of Alcúdia". So gushing is it, you wonder why they've not staged the event in Alcúdia before. Always assuming they haven't, because finding some really good historical information about the regatta has proven difficult. It's there, just that it doesn't say very much.

The regatta is unquestionably a feather in Alcúdia's cap and assists further with the resort's ambitions as a centre for watersports. It is also a confirmation of the existence of an Alcúdia which is removed from the experiences of many holidaymakers. The "magnificent enclave" of the marina with its "lounge" that will be "managed by the (Michelin-starred) Restaurant Jardín" is an example of the description of the regatta's venue for those participating.

But, and notwithstanding the fact that Jardín itself is located quite close to The Mile, it is a description that conflicts with how the average punter around The Mile (and Magic) will think of Alcúdia. The marina is a part of Alcúdia all on its own. It's even in conflict with other parts of the port area where restaurant owners object to apparent preferential treatment. The marina is a part of Alcúdia and it is apart.

The regatta, hugely welcome, does, nevertheless, highlight Alcúdia's diversity. In one respect, this is a good thing, but in another, it isn't. There is a lack of uniformity in the way in which resources have been devoted to the resort, and The Mile area is right down the list of priorities, despite its being the main centre of tourism.

This lack of uniformity is such that one gets an uneasy feeling of the hoi-polloi having to watch on while the rich, as typified by the regatta, are at play. There is a tension in Alcúdia, not widely spoken, but existing all the same, and the fact that restaurant owners and other tourist businesses, primarily located around The Mile, are talking of staging protests at the tourism ministry against the effects of all-inclusives suggests that it is now going to be spoken more loudly. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, or something like this; the rich being the marina and some hotels, the poor being many of the restaurant and bar owners, especially if they have no presence among the glitterati of the marina's regatta brigade.

The story in Alcúdia is likely to be one of growing division. The marina, together with its sport, typifies the government's drive towards modernisation of the resorts and of their gentrification. But resorts cannot all be like Alcúdia's marina, and not all of Alcúdia can be like the marina. It is difficult to see, despite the legal reforms and despite taxes for conversion work being earmarked for resort renewal, how areas of Alcúdia - The Mile and parts around Magic - can be upgraded significantly, unless there is massive investment of the sort that Melià is pumping into Magalluf. There is no Melià in Alcúdia though, and while some hotels will be in a position to upgrade. modernise, convert or whatever, other will not be. How, for example, do you solve a problem like Bellevue?

The regatta is good news. It genuinely is. But it is news that informs us of the have and have-not differences in Alcúdia. That informs us of the resort's separate development. Something has to be done about The Mile, but will it?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Discrimination?: Puerto Alcúdia's restaurants

Discrimination comes in various forms. Restaurants being discriminated against is not the first form of discrimination that might immediately come to mind when the D-word is being bandied about, but discriminated against is what the poor restaurant owners of Puerto Alcúdia's Paseo Marítimo believe they are being.

The reason for this lies with the marina, within the marina and with the entrance towards the marina. According to the restaurant owners of the paseo, Alcudiamar (to give the marina its actual name) has benefited this season from its evening market having started a month earlier than that along the paseo and does benefit from the way in which the paseo is designed (or not, if you consider the bridge that goes nowhere to be a total nonsense of design).

The evening market is one thing, though it must be said that the marina's market has not escaped criticism of a different sort in the past, i.e. that it is tacky, so it may not be the great draw some might believe, the paseo's layout is another. The restaurant owners seem to believe that the presence of the bridge somehow shuffles people into the marina. It is frankly a strange conclusion, and it is one that has taken years to arrive at, all the years since the damn thing was erected.

In restaurants along the paseo, you can order drinks that come replete with straws, and in the restaurant owners' arguments there are an awful lot of straws being clutched at. They may have a point where the different starting times for the markets are concerned (the marina's from the beginning of May, the paseo's from June), but not when they say that the bridge and the tourist office create a sort of visual impediment that add to a sense of discrimination. To be honest, I haven't a clue what they're going on about.

Well actually, I think I do have a clue. And the clue may lie with the recently formed restaurant association (it is one for the bay of Alcúdia, but its power base resides partly along the paseo, with one restaurant in particular). Though restaurants in the marina are a part of the association, as evidenced by the current restaurant association-organised gastronomy event which is going on, one has to appreciate that Alcúdia has its rivalries, and they are at their strongest in the port area.

Alcudiamar is essentially under the control of two people/families. I am not going to identify anyone or any companies, so you'll just have to take my word for it, but this is the situation. Along the paseo, there is certainly one family, two perhaps, who are the big cheeses. The restaurant association is very closely linked with one of these families.

I don't accept the claims of discrimination in favour of Alcudiamar. Not for one moment do I. Yes, it has benefited from a great deal of investment and yes, it does attract a great deal of attention, but the discrimination charge is one that stems from a power battle, and the battle is one of looking to influence the town hall. Which is fair enough, but the specious argument about the paseo's layout and the presence of the bridge reveals the lengths to which one side (the paseo's restaurant owners) will go in attempting to create a case for more town hall action in their favour and against the marina.

The argument is not just specious, it is also ridiculous. Of course people will walk into the marina. This has nothing to do with the paseo's layout, it has everything to do with the fact that there are boats to look at and that it seems like a nice place to walk. That restaurants in the marina might then benefit, well good luck to them, but I'm not convinced that they always have. The level of turnover among the relatively few restaurants in the marina has been much higher than that along the paseo, which suggests that they either pay rents that are too excessive or they haven't attracted sufficient business or both.

More can always be done to make the paseo more "dynamic", and the association is insisting that the town hall add some dynamism, but when you learn of some of the criticisms of a lack of dynamism, you have to ask why aren't the restaurants doing more themselves and not simply expecting the town hall to do it all for them.

A case in point. There are restaurants at the far end of the paseo, heading towards the commercial port and Alcanada, to which comparatively few tourists go. The reason why they don't is because it looks as though there isn't a great deal there. So what do you? You try and ensure that people keep walking, yet I once spoke to a restaurant owner in this part of the paseo who said that he didn't need to advertise because his "table" was his publicity. And so good was it, he is no longer there.

Discrimination does not exist. Power battles do, as does a need to shift blame, as in onto the town hall, and as does an inability on behalf of restaurants to assume the initiative. But if you really want to talk about discrimination when it comes to restaurants in Puerto Alcúdia, then let's talk about those which are located in the main tourist centre around Magic and Bellevue. What do they ever get?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.