Sculpture of Canadair firefighting plane in Puerto Pollensa, Mallorca

The Canadair could do with a lick of paint. | Andrew Ede

Andrew EdePollensa21/07/2024 12:47
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You will no doubt be aware that signatures have been put to contracts for Puerto Pollensa and Cala San Vicente beach services and that, at long last, the beaches are alive with the sound of contractor operatives requesting payment for sunloungers and parasols. All those tourists, who - according to strange elements of the British media - had been lost and had headed for Alcudia and its abundance of sunloungers, are now returning. Beach paradise (in a Puerto Pollensa style) lost, beach paradise regained; the epic saga of the tenders is now over. Until 2028. When there will doubtless be a repeat of a similar nature for the four-year cycle of services' renewal. Pollensa can be relied on for this.

Sighs of relief having been heard from the town hall, can contracting personnel now put their feet up and count the days before all disappearing for their holidays? Chance would be a fine thing. Tender is the night, tender is the day, for there are other outstanding tenders of epic proportions akin to the sunloungers but without the same potential for guaranteeing British newspaper web traffic. This said, I guess something could be made out of the Puerto Pollensa sports centre's bar being closed. Not that I'll attempt a headline; just leave it to your imagination.

'Tis true, though, the bar has been closed. So have the bars at the Pollensa sports centre and pavilion; these have been closed for four years. How can this be? All to do with the pandemic. They closed and never reopened.

Back in April - three months ago, note - the tender process for all three bars was declared void by the town hall. No company had bid, thus making the process sound not dissimilar to the beaches. Tuesday was the deadline for new bids, the tenders having been reissued. Somewhat confusingly, the town hall reminded bidders on Facebook that the bars in Pollensa were still up for grabs and not the Puerto Pollensa bar, the award for which in April the town hall was confident of making shortly, while on the town hall's website all three were subject to new bids.

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Anyway, one trusts that awards will now be made, thus allowing the contracting personnel to relax with tranquillity on their holiday sunloungers and in the vicinity of a bar not under the control of a local authority and therefore very much open. From what I can make out, it doesn't seem to be a bad deal. There again, I don't run a bar and never have run a bar. But an estimated job-lot contract value of 2.28 million euros when set against annual town hall charges of 4,500 euros (plus VAT) and 3,000 euros over four years for the two Pollensa bars plus estimated investment expenditure of some 47,000 euros sounds reasonable. Except that the 2.28 million is for the Puerto Pollensa bar as well.

Confused? I am.

Meanwhile ... It became tradition when Spain were winning everything some years ago for Alcudia's Magic Roundabout to be the centre for celebrations. So it was again last weekend following the Euro 2024 defeat of England. Leonardo's Knot, the sculpture, provided something on which to climb, it perhaps being as well that the celebrations aren't at the Horse Roundabout. Try climbing the horse.

Over the years, the horse, when not undergoing repairs because an HGV has managed to crash into it, has required the occasional lick of paint. It can be a problem with these roundabout sculptures - the discolouring. And so it is with the sculpture of the Canadair firefighting plane in Puerto Pollensa. The colours have faded. Again. The town hall paid for a repainting job a few years back, but responsibility for roundabouts like the one on which the plane sits is the Council of Mallorca's. Who'll pay? If a tender is needed and it's left to the town hall, who knows when the job might get done.