Faro Bridge – the farce continues

The latest step has been taken in an attempt to build a bridge to Faro island, a long running saga that has kept locals and newsrooms entertained for years.

The new tender is for €3.5 million, €1.12 million higher than the last tender in October that not a single contractor was lured by, as it was based on out-of-date figures.

This latest tender was published this Friday by the Polis Litoral Ria Formosa Society, a comppany which formally will cease to exist three days later on December 31^st after twice cheating death with two, 12-month extensions.

Faro Council said today that it has topped up the tender price with over a million euros of ratepayers’ funds as, “this additional investment in the construction is due to the lack of funding from the Polis and the Government to do the work, which, it is recalled, is the sole responsibility of Polis Litoral Ria Formosa.”

Faro Council has been led a merry dance by the government and Polis, of which it is a shareholder, and handed over €900,000 in 2009, followed by €561,000 in 2016, imagining that throwing money at the company would get the bridge built: it hasn’t.

Faro’s mayor Bacalhau ignores the appalling waste of ratepayers’ funds on a project for which the Council is not responsible, claiming this additional €1.12 million was “the only possible solution taking into account the need to increase the levels of service, safety and comfort of users accessing Faro beach” – note that he did not mention those that live on the island.

The new bridge, says the Council, “will be even more efficient than the current one from an environmental, architectural and navigational point of view.”

As for when this project will be started, pick a date – the Council is going for 2020, but already is preparing a long list of excuses as to why the replacement of a simple bridge has caused it such problems.