Portimão Retail Park a tourist attraction?

Dear Editor,
I was delighted to read that the Portimão Retail Park will finally be cleaning up the devastation left by the ever-mysterious fire that broke out at the shopping centre in September 2012.
Three close friends of mine either lost their jobs there or have to travel hundreds of kilometres per week to work at another store in the region.
Driving by what looked like the remains of a nuclear war every day on my trip home from work was a vivid reminder of what my friends and dozens of other workers had lost.
It is hard for me to understand how the owners of the property and the Portimão Câmara washed their hands of the subject and left the park abandoned for 16 months.
Not a week, or a month, or even a year. Sixteen months.
Even more complicated is understanding how such a major fire, capable of destroying numerous megastores, was met with such weak justifications and investigations.
And so, it seems the remains were somehow left forgotten, only metres away from the small community of Chão das Donas.
I find myself actually wondering if the local council thought about the image tourists would have while driving by the park. Or is having a local Hiroshima site in Portimão a tourist attraction? Is that why the council left it unattended for so long? Was it planning to organise excursions to the site? Charge €5 per ticket? Come on folks, let’s hurry up with the tour before it gets dark and the rats come out to feast.
In all seriousness, I am just happy to know that soon we, Portimão residents, will no longer have to set our eyes upon that mountain of metallic junk.
João Neves
Portimão