The project to demolish the buildings at risk in Cedovém, in Esposende, which was scheduled for completion by the end of 2023, will go ahead following the approval of the new government, and is expected to be completed by December, it was revealed today.
“What was decided was to divide it into two phases. The first phase – demolition and urban rehabilitation; the second phase – re-profiling and re-naturalization,” said the mayor of Esposende, Benjamim Pereira, in a statement to Lusa.
The mayor of that municipality in the district of Braga met in the afternoon with the Secretary of State for the Environment and Energy, Emídio Sousa, who in the morning had already accompanied the demolition work on a beach bar in Apúlia and visited some of the sites at risk due to coastal erosion, including the Cedovém/Pedrinhas area where, under the Caminha-Espinho Coastal Zone Program (POC-CE), 89 homes, more than half a hundred outbuildings and seven restaurants are to be demolished.
Benjamim Pereira also said that he would be meeting with the design team next week in order to move forward with the implementation project for the first phase, which includes the demolition of all the existing buildings in Cedovém.
“It would be bad if [by the end of the year] the execution project wasn’t ready. This is about moving very quickly, we can’t wait until the end of the year. I’m really afraid that next winter we’ll have a very serious problem of buildings being washed away by the sea,” he warned, describing the advance of the sea along the coast as “truly frightening”.
At the same time, the legal services will be assessing the different situations in order to determine compensation claims.
“There are two aspects: those who can prove some kind of ownership will obviously receive direct compensation, while those who can’t will have [the right to compensation] for improvements to the property,” said the mayor, who admitted that this compensation effort has to be assumed “between the Portuguese state and the municipality”.
In the case of Pedrinhas, which will go ahead at a later stage, Benjamim Pereira made it clear that there will be no housing there, only the boat houses, due to their architectural value, will be preserved.
At this afternoon’s meeting, an update was also given on two other municipal projects: Barra de Esposende and Parque da Cidade.
“With regard to Barra, we’re going to meet with the technicians of the study [of risk characterization and intervention program for the protection of the Ofir sandbank and Cávado bar, carried out by the Institute of Hydraulics and Water Resources (IHRH)] to present the project technically and schedule a meeting with the DGRM [Directorate General for Maritime Resources],” he said.
The study in question suggests the construction of a longitudinal dyke on the left bank of the river, parallel to the sandbank, which will allow sediment to settle on the sandbank, while on the seaward side, the proposal calls for the construction of two breakwaters that will facilitate the accumulation of sand and the renaturation of the sandbank. Both the dyke and the proposed breakwaters are low-lying structures.
“For now, if the inner rockfill was done and the bar was fixed, that’s what we’ve wanted for centuries,” he said, stressing that the municipality wants a small bar that will serve fishing and recreational boats up to a certain size, and that will be part of the natural park.
The mayor believes that this first phase – at a cost of around five million euros – would not require an environmental impact study and could proceed more quickly.
As for the City Park project, the second phase of which will be awarded at Thursday’s municipal executive meeting, Benjamim Pereira said that a meeting will be set up with the Northern Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR-N) to identify sources of funding.
The project includes the requalification of the southern part of the riverside area, providing the riverfront with pedestrian and cycling routes, spaces for outdoor events, environmental interpretation posts and birdwatching points, among other infrastructures, in an overall investment of around seven million euros.
