Fishermen and the Chamber want the reconfiguration of Portinho to progress to the construction phase in 2026, fulfilling plans

The reconfiguration work on the Portinho de Vila Praia de Âncora is expected to start within about two years “and no one would understand if this were not the case, especially the fishermen, who have seen the intervention successively postponed, compromising their working conditions and the own life. They believed that this time it would be possible, they have worked with experts from IST – Instituto Superior Técnico, with Caminha City Council and with official bodies linked to Fisheries and Ports. It would be really bad if the plans were interrupted and I don’t believe that this injustice could happen” – this is the conviction of the Mayor, Rui Lages, and comes in connection with the presentation session of the model of the Portinho de Vila reconfiguration project Âncora Beach, now located in the GAM – Citizen Support Office, in that village.

A mix of joy and hope, but also some fear and anguish, marked the session in which the model was released at the end of last week, a step that concludes a set of steps that have been rigorously followed. Carlos Sampaio, on behalf of the Vila Praia de Âncora Fishermen’s Association, in statements to journalists at the end, admitted as much, recalling the lack of security and the amounts spent on dredging in recent years. “This is a project for our community and you cannot move back a comma, you cannot move back a word. We have been fighting for this for ten years, we have already been through four governments and we already had the design and construction in our hands, and when we were going to start, we had to start over from square one”, he stated.

The person responsible even considered that it had been “10 years of struggle, one step at a time (…) the Vila Praia de Âncora Sea Port was never completed and was always inoperative”.

“Now, there’s just one more stage left, just one more, but it’s a decisive stage. I would say the hardest part is done. Very serious, very rigorous, very in-depth work was done, in dialogue with all parties. Now you need to apply and obtain financing. Money is important, but I dare say it’s the easiest part. The fishermen, the entire municipality have the right to this work”, highlights Rui Lages, considering that everyone wins – “it’s not just the fishermen, it’s the municipality’s economy, it’s our entire community. The Portinho is not functional and is dangerous, it requires frequent dredging and with that nothing can be definitively resolved. We have to find financing to carry out the work. We know that the Government was already working in this direction – in 2026 the work must be on the ground, that is what is required and nothing less”, concludes Rui Lages.

The deputy director general of the Directorate General of Natural Resources, Security and Maritime Services (DGRM), Isabel Ventura was optimistic about the possibility of, in practice, fulfilling the defined plans. The start of the work is scheduled for 2026, she recalled, also recalling that, in the last two years (2022 and 2023) around half a million euros were spent on dredging operations to ensure that Portinho could be functional.

In Isabel Ventura’s opinion, with the execution of the work, Portinho de Vila Praia de Âncora could play as important a role as other ports in the North of Portugal, even constituting an alternative, including to the Port of Galicia.

The person in charge also highlighted the commitment that all parties put into the process that led to this model – “DGRM put a lot of effort into it, together with the Chamber and the fishermen. Only in this way can we fulfill the promise” made to the fishermen.

It should be remembered that, in May 2021, the then Minister of the Sea, Ricardo Serrão Santos, on a visit to Vila Praia de Âncora, promised to carry out the study on the reconfiguration of the Vila Praia de Âncora Sea Port, with a new layout. From then on, a long and in-depth process began, always in dialogue with fishermen, the City Council, entities linked to fishing and ports and experts from the Instituto Superior Técnico; always accompanied by the Secretary of State for Fisheries, Teresa Coelho.

The Reconfiguration Study of the Port of Vila Praia de Âncora was presented at the Vila Praia de Âncora Cineteatro on the 6th of July, with the participation of the General Director of the General Directorate of Natural Resources, Security and Maritime Services – DRGM, José Simão , and with the Secretary of State for Fisheries.

The person responsible was once again present at the Small Fisheries Congress, at the beginning of November, when a new status of the study was made.

Last December, still in the Cineteatro space, another fundamental stage was completed: the Reconfiguration Study of the Portinho de Vila Praia de Âncora Layout was completed and ready to move on to the following phases. The project involves the creation of a buffer (solution A), as recommended by experts from Instituto Superior Técnico. A commitment was made at the time that the construction of the model would be completed immediately (and delivered to Vila Praia de Âncora), so that the application for funding for EIA could be made (MAR 2020).

The forecast was that by the end of 2024 the entire bureaucratic process could be completed and when the dossier was passed to the new Government, the project would be given priority.