The cement company will continue in the port of El Pajar for at least six more years – Canarias7

View of the El Pajar industrial port and the nearby Ceisa cement factory. / C7The Canarian Government proposes the transfer of the factory to Arinaga and a mixed use of the current dock, industrial and sports, until then JESÚS QUESADA Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Friday, August 5, 2022, 8:40 pm The port of El Pajar will maintain the current use “temporarily”, until the transfer of the cement plant that has been operating there for 65 years to land in the Arinaga Industrial Estate near that port is materialized, which will not happen before 2028, and in the meantime it will be for shared use, industry and sports. That is the proposal that the Government of the Canary Islands will make to the board of directors of Puertos Canarios to resolve the future of that dock in San Bartolomé de Tirajana once the concession expires, on October 29, granted to the Ceisa company in 1972. for a term of 50 years. Until then, the Minister of Public Works, Sebastián Franquis, will continue negotiating with the opposing parties in this conflict, the cement company on one side and the tourist employers on the other, to try to put a date on the “reasonable” time it would take to transfer the cement plant and modifying the necessary planning for the tourist development of the Santa Águeda area. A group of tourists sunbathes next to the industrial port of El Pajar. / C7 That deadline must be determined before October 29, said Franquis, who did not want to give specific figures but announced that those responsible for the Arinaga Industrial Estate have informed the Canarian Government that preparing the land for the transfer will not be possible before 2028. And the Port Authority of Las Palmas, responsible for the management of the port of Arinaga, does not believe it is possible to transfer berthing space before the same date. Planning review In addition, the Minister of Public Works explained, the time it takes for the factory to leave the port and the plot it occupies next to it, and which it owns, will also depend on how long it takes for the Cabildo to approve a review of the Insular Ordination Plan (PIO) that grants binding character to the sports use of the port of Santa Águeda. It is also necessary that the City Council of San Bartolomé de Tirajana later adapt its General Plan to change the use of the cement plot from industrial to tourist. Installations of the cement factory located next to the port of Santa Águeda. / C7 Franquis explained that Puertos Canarios will begin in September the file to modify the regime of uses of the port of Santa Águeda, now exclusively industrial, and that it includes sports, a procedure with a planned term of 12 to 18 months. Only then will the concession of its management and exploitation be put out to tender. From 150 to 200 berths He also explained that the future leisure dock will have capacity for between 150 and 200 sports boats, according to a study on the demand for leisure berths in that southern coastal strip, where the facilities of Pasito Blanco, Puerto Rico and Arguineguin. The temporary shared use of the port of Santa Águeda constitutes “the best solution in terms of social benefits”, respects the forecasts for tourism development in the area and “carries with it the protection of employment and the productive fabric”, stressed the minister. Franquis transferred this Thursday and Friday to the public administrations, companies and groups involved in the future of Santa Águeda the conclusions of the working group created a year and a half ago by his department and the Departments of Ecological Transition and Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands to study the alternative uses of the port. The cement factory has been on this plot of land in Santa Águeda for 65 years. / Arcadio Suárez Yesterday he closed that round of meetings with the citizen platform Salvar Santa Águeda, which aspires to conserve that coastal strip of prevailing tourist development in the South. Reports and documents The working group has commissioned up to five sectoral reports (economic, territorial and environmental, among others) on the three possibilities that it has considered from the beginning: that the port has only industrial use, only sports or mixed (shared by both ). In total there are 24 documents that make up the file and whose recommendations will be transferred to Puertos Canarios, the entity that has to resolve the extension of the concession requested by Ceisa. The Minister of Public Works appealed to the need to “reach a great island agreement” between public administrations and the private sector, based on the general interest, to set a date for the transfer of the cement plant without losing employment and economic activity. “Now I am more optimistic than a while ago,” he maintained about it. While the factory asks for more time, the tourist employers of Las Palmas demand that it be less. “There is no set number of years because it is not agreed upon,” he declared.