The environmental impact study (EIA) for the construction of an IKEA store and shopping centre on the border of the Loulé and Faro municipalities is available for public consultation up until May 27.
According to Público newspaper, the study maintains the store will have a “relatively low” impact on the Barrocal area of Caliços–Esteval, as the area has already lost most of its natural characteristics.
Work will be required to the area’s waterways (the streams of Caliços and São Lourenço) and as many as five new roundabouts will need to be constructed to avoid any build up of traffic flow from the A22 highway and national EN125 road.
The study comes as six other commercial establishments are also reported to be bidding for licenxes in the municipality and thus the future for IKEA’s store is still some way off.
As Público points out, the plan has been heavily contested by environmental associations as well as local business owners who fear the pressure of too much competition.
Last year, environmental association Quercus accused the IKEA Group of “lack of environmental responsibility” – the complex is planned on land classified as National Agricultural Reserve (RAN) – and IKEA retaliated by announcing that it was taking legal action for damages from all those who had “threatened its right and interests”.
Meantime, the reality is that Loulé is already slap in the middle of an area filled with shopping malls and complexes. Algarve Shopping in Guia and Forúm Algarve in Faro are both nearby, and another six large-scale projects are reported to be vying for approval.
Even so, IKEA’s promise has always been that it would bring a multimillion euro investment with as many as 13,200 direct and indirect jobs. It was this that led the government to declare it a PIN (Project of National Interest).
Says the environmental impact study, the project was conceived with clients from the Algarve, Lower Alentejo and south of Spain in mind, while the study has considered all traffic ‘impacts’ other than that of any impact as a result of events taking place in the Algarve Stadium.
