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Date Published: 30/05/2022

ARCHIVED - The failed Puerto Mayor project in La Manga will finally be removed by 2024

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

It is hoped that rusting steel from the abandoned marina project in La Manga will begin to be cleared next year

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - The failed Puerto Mayor project in La Manga will finally be removed by 2024

Around 18 years ago, in 2004, work started to build a shiny new marina next to the Estacio canal in La Manga. Grandly named the ‘Puerto Mayor’, it was originally designed to include 900 mooring points, 2,000 tourist residences, a pitch-and-putt golf and even a small airport. It was due to be a jewel in the crown of the La Manga tourist industry, until disaster struck.

Work swiftly stopped in 2005, and repeated attempts to restart it have been thwarted by bureaucracy, due to continued concerns over the potential environmental effects of the project, that would pour thousands of tonnes of concrete into the Mar Menor, which is already notorious for suffering from poor water quality.

Now, the task has become, more than completing the half-built marina, to remove the metal skeleton of Puerto Mayor.

Along with the recovery of the Mar Menor, the restoration of the Sierra Minera and the recovery of Portmán Bay, this has become one of the great challenges facing the central government in the Region of Murcia.

Since April last year, when the Council of Ministers agreed that possession of the land should be returned to the State, the Ministry for Ecological Transition included the recovery of this area in its project for saving the Mar Menor.

The budget for the whole project is 6.4 million euros, but the deadline has been extended to 2024, by which time the area is expected to be restored. For the time being, and if the deadlines are maintained, the Ministry expects to have the final project ready at the beginning of 2023. Before that, the plan must undergo an environmental impact assessment and a public information process that may modify the final alternative.

In the last few days, the Ministry for Ecological Transition has put out to tender the drafting of the project, a tender that is expected to be concluded in July. The restoration project also includes action to restore the dune habitats in the area and reinforce coastal defence works after the removal of the structures anchored to the seabed, as well as possible modifications to the breakwater located to the south.

The removal of the sheet piles is one of the most complex parts of the operation, as many of them are significantly rusted and corroded. These huge steel sheets were placed in the water between 2003 and 2008 as a kind of structure to build to marina around, but now that the project has been abandoned, they will need to be removed.

The Ministry points out, though, that these may have had a possible negative effect on the Estacio beach, contributing to “a considerable loss of sand surface over the last few decades”.

Images: ANSE