Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a meeting held with Algarve councils earlier this week, Minister Pedro Marques said: “I hope, by the end of this year, to have the negotiating procedure complete for the work, which is the responsibility of the concessionaire, to take place then, and so, by the end of this year, start of the coming year, the interventions will certainly be unlocked.”
Minister Marques added that the delay is not being caused by a lack of financing but because Public-Private Partnership negotiations are still ongoing.
“We are now waiting to conclude negotiations with the concessionaire [Rotas do Algarve Litoral] and I want to have that negotiation done by the end of the year, which will allow us to restart the [road] work”, he elaborated.
The Minister stressed that the “essential work”, between Olhão and Vila do Bispo, should be finished by next summer.
Work along the EN125 partially restarted in 2014 after a two-year stoppage, and was interrupted again in July this year at the request of local councils, to avoid hampering traffic during the busy summer months.
At the time it was stipulated that work would be picked up once again in September, but that failed to happen.