Algarve Situation Report Wednesday 26th January 2022
Loulé Council halts project to install a new “waste management unit” in the municipality
The Municipality of Loulé reported that it had approved, for the third time, preventive measures (with the consequent suspension of the Loulé PDM in force) in order to stop the progress of projects that “may jeopardize the environment and quality of life of the populations”.
This Monday, in a city council session, the Municipality explains that it was unanimously decided to institute this measure in an area of 8.5 hectares in the area of the former Matos da Picota quarry, where the developer Blueotter Circular, SA intends to install a management unit for waste.
In a statement, the Municipality of Loulé assumes that the decision taken “is based on the manifest public interest of safeguarding and protecting the environment of the entire area and public health and also took into account the concerns of the surrounding population, the recommendation of the Municipal Assembly unanimously approved on December 3, 2021, as well as the deliberation of the Chamber of December 20».
The municipality says that it is aware that «the environmental impacts resulting from the possible installation of industrial activities (namely activities of the nature that, at the present time, are intended to be installed there), are negative and of great importance, in an area and area greatly punished by the fact that, for decades, highly polluting industrial units that were harmful to public health have worked there.
Fourth Portuguese Jewish Community makes official address in the Algarve
On the eve of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, the Jewish Community of the Algarve announces its establishment as an official Religious Community.
The Jewish Community of the Algarve (CJA) becomes the fourth official Jewish community in Portugal, having been registered as a Religious Collective Person (non-Catholic) on Tuesday, January 4, in the National Register of Legal Persons.
The lengthy process of recognizing the organization was approved by the Religious Freedom Commission, chaired by José Vera Jardim.
This is the first time that a Jewish community has been recognized by the Religious Freedom Act, legislation that recently celebrated its 20th anniversary.
Being the most recent community with this specific legal figure, it will perhaps be the one that has the closest proximity to an extraordinary and ancient legacy of Jewish presence in Portugal, with almost two millennia.
The traces of the confirmed presence of these communities date back at least to the 4th century with the discovery in Silves of the tombstone of Yehiel from the year 390 of the Common Era, the oldest in the Iberian Peninsula.
Legislative: PS Algarve applauds “new” Hospital in Lagos and asks for opportunity to build central hospital in the Algarve
The inclusion since today of the former private Hospital São Gonçalo de Lagos in the National Health Service, thus replacing the old hospital in Lagos “is excellent news” for the populations of Lagos, Vila de Bispo and Aljezur, advances the PS Algarve in a statement released.
Jamila Madeira, head of the list of the Socialist Party in the Algarve, expressed “enormous” satisfaction at the conclusion of this process, recalling that the PS deputies presented an initiative in the Assembly of the Republic in which they underlined the importance of the Government to enable a modern hospital response that is up to the needs of the populations of “Terras do Infante”.
The former Assistant Secretary of State for Health congratulated the board of directors of CHUA and all the mayors involved in this solution for the former Lagos Hospital, adding that this announced New Year’s gift «is an excellent contribution to strengthening the quality of the National Service of Health in the Algarve and in the counties of the southwest Alentejo».
Reaffirming that with the PS the new Central Hospital «is really going ahead» and that once the legal uncertainties regarding the contract suspended in 2011 are overcome, the PS Government will proceed with the signing of the contract for the award of the work, Jamila Madeira asked the Algarve for a second opportunity for the PS to comply with the construction of the new central hospital in the Algarve: “who believes that the PSD will spend 300 million euros on a public hospital when its leader defends that the National Health Service should be only for the poor and who has money should pay for health? Who believes that the right that wants to end free health care and put the private in competition with the public again would build a new hospital for the poor and indigent?”
The Judicial Police arrested a man, about 34 years old, suspected of committing a crime of arson.
The PJ said in a statement that the facts refer to a fire that occurred in the early hours of January 22, which broke out inside a house located in São Brás de Alportel, “in which the property had been recovered by the Municipality, with a view to rent at affordable prices’.
The detainee will be presented to the Judiciary Authority to apply the coercive measures.