Letters to the Editor

Dear Sir,
Can I say at the start that the system works well and doesn’t tie up parking space for long periods. However, if you overstay your time and face a fine it’s not widely known how to avoid the maximum penalty. I am not an expert on this, but I understand you can pay early and even enter your car registration in the machine within one hour and only pay a small fine. Also there are many ways you can pay the fine. I also learned there is small tear off strip on the bottom of the ticket which tells you time on and off parking. There are also periods of the day when parking is suspended.

Could the Bulletin set out the facts on this matter. It would be most helpful to regular and visiting motorists to Majorca.

John Anslow
Wolverhampton

The GESA building project

Dear Sir,
In Sunday’s Bulletin we learn that in the rundown GESA building individual floors are going to be put out for tender. The successful bidders will undertake the renovation but have to rent out space to "young entrepreneurs engaged in creative enterprise". Only three floors will be used to "create large creative communities", eight will be for public use such as a library and an events hall. The top (eleventh) floor may be a restaurant with a viewing gallery. The target date for full operation is 2018.

Within spitting distance (excuse the choice of verb) is the project for Palacio de Congresos and adjacent hotel. This was born in 2003 and scheduled for full operation for 2008. Back in 2014 I offered Bulletin readers bets at 10 to 1, then 20 to 1 that it wouldn’t be completed that year. Sensibly your readers didn’t take me up - perhaps if I’d said 2016 the betting would have been better.

I foresee the GESA project as another disaster. Among other basic business gaffs these public floors will be paid for from the revenue gained from the creative communities, so in effect each of the three floor bidders will have to offer at least four times their own renovation costs. Will the young entrepreneurs (normally impoverished) be able to pay over the odds rents? If not will property businessmen make bids?

It isn’t just in town that these cock-ups have occurred. I’m sure readers know of local examples. The health centre of Can Pastilla rose from the abandoned Hotel Isla Azul after ten years as an eyesore. In Sometimes, Carlos Moya’s tennis club is still bricked up with added graffiti - 14 years and still counting.

Mike Lillico
Playa de Palma