Museum of Pollentia to be built in old railway cutting

MADRID
CENTRAL Government's Culture Ministry gave the go ahead yesterday for the new museum in the ancient city of Pollentia outside Alcudia, to be built in a former railway cutting on the site itself.

The news was given yesterday after the ministry's Museum Director, Santiago Palomero met in Madrid with the Balearic government's Culture Director, Pere Joan Martorell and the Mayor of Alcudia, Joan Llompart. The meeting was to “speed up” the paperwork for the museum which was originally to be built on a site away from the archaeological ruins alongside the l'Hort dels Fassers secondary school.

However, Alcudia Town Council had always wanted to build the museum closer to the site of Pollentia itself, but Central Government which owns the ancient Roman ground, had until now, always refused fearing that construction may in some way interfere with the archaeological remains. “But now,” says Llompart, “after a change of attitude, the Culture Ministry is giving the Balearics permission to build the museum on an old railway cutting - the remains of an attempt made in the 1930s to build a train line up to Alcudia, but which never materialised. “The Ministry has said to us that it will accept what we think best, as long as we can back up our proposals with technical reports, compiled both by the Council of Majorca and Alcudia Town Council,” said Llompart.

The old railway cutting, he said, is thought to be a “safe” site on which to build the new museum because it has already been searched thoroughly from an archaeological standpoint, he explained.

Pere Joan Martorell said that the project has now been benchmarked and when an inter-governmental Culture meeting takes place in June this year in Palma, an agreement will be signed between Central Government and authorities in Alcudia.