The Monitoring Committee for the work of the Independent Technical Commission (CTI) for the new airport gave a favorable opinion to the final report, with the Santarém City Council disagreeing.
The Monitoring Committee for the work of the Independent Technical Commission (CTI) met this morning, at the National Civil Engineering Laboratory (LNEC), in Lisbon, to assess the final version of the Environmental Report prepared by the CTI and issue the opinion of the Monitoring Committee to be sent to the Government together with the CTI final report.
As Carlos Mineiro Aires explained, a favorable opinion was given to the CTI’s final report, which points out viable options for the location of the new Alcochete and Vendas Novas airports and also a transitional solution in which Santarém operates in a complementary way to Humberto Delgado Airport, but with the disagreement of the Santarém City Council.
Carlos Mineiro Aires said that the reasons presented by the municipality will be included in the minutes, but highlighted that “the competence, independence and exemption of the Independent Technical Commission” were not called into question.
Santarém was followed in that vote by the neighboring councils of Alcanena and Golegã and the report also merited the abstention of the Municipal Council of Torres Novas.
There was also an abstention from one of the seven representatives of the Academy of Sciences, professor Manuel Porto, for reasons that, according to Mineiro Aires, “have nothing to do with the report itself, or with the credibility of the Independent Technical Commission”, but with issues linked to the territory, which were outside the scope of the Resolution of the Council of Ministers that guided the work of this commission.
The CTI published on March 11 the final report of the strategic environmental assessment of the new airport, maintaining the recommendation of a single solution in Alcochete or Vendas Novas, but pointed out that Humberto Delgado + Santarém “could be a solution”.
In this solution, the commission refers to Santarém as a “complementary airport to AHD (Humberto Delgado), but with a limited number of movements, not allowing the necessary airport capacity to be met in the long term”, but “it would have the advantage of allowing it to be overcome in the short term conditions created by the concession contract, with the added advantage of private financing”.
The final report, which is available on the aeroparticipa.pt page, will be formally delivered today to the Government, together with the opinion of the Monitoring Committee, chaired by Carlos Mineiro Aires.
The PSD decided to set up an internal working group to analyze the location of the new Lisbon airport, after agreeing with the PS to set up a CTI to carry out the strategic environmental assessment.
The social democratic president, Luís Montenegro, guaranteed that the decision will be taken “in the first days” of government.
