Son Pardo ready to ride over prostitutes

Palma City Council's proposal to move Palma's prostitutes out of the city centre and up to the area around Son Pardo race track on the immediate outskirts of the city has set the red lights flashing and caused widespread alarm amongst local Son Pardo residents associations. Yesterday, amidst threats of protest action from local residents, Maria Antonia Munar, President of the Insular Council of Majorca, slammed the city council's re-location proposal as “not very serious and inhumane.” Munar said that the primary task of public administration is to “provide solutions” to problems and she clearly does not envisage moving the prostitutes from one part of the city to another as the answer. Munar advocated yesterday that the problem needs to be faced “head on” and that moving the city centre's prostitutes to a “darker” and more sinister area of the capital is a “very insensitive” idea. “It is a problem facing us all,” Munar said, adding that the city council and the central government delegate to the Balearics should be trying to solve the issue together. The Mayor of Palma Joan Fageda has made it clear that the council, the social services and the Local Police are looking at various alternatives, but he is against establishing a “specific zone” for prostitutes similar to those created by other European city councils which have subsequently failed. But at a meeting held on Monday night, horse breeders, trainers, jockeys and residents living near Son Pardo agreed unanimously to take legal action against the city council if they have the prostitutes moved into the area.