The town planning and territory office of the Formentera Council announced today that in 2014 seventy-seven proceedings were opened for violations of the town planning code, chiefly for construction without a permit and improper permit for activities undertaken.

Put in other words, citations for town planning infractions were issued every 4.7 days, or once every 3.2 days when counting only business days.

Of the total, 14 cases eventually led to a demolition order being issued and 19 were legitimised, either because the offender obtained the required permit or the house or building was returned to its previous condition. The remaining cases are still in proceedings.

The 77 infractions led to 28 sanctionary measures being pursued by the local administration. Of those, nine were finally concluded, which led to a total collection of €280,000 in fines. Since Law 2/2014 took effect concerning land-use ordinances in the Balearics, sanctionary measures are adopted when the proceeding to re-establish legitimacy fails.

In 2013 seventy-two town planning infractions were cited, five less than in 2014. Of that total, 29 of the citations led to a demolition order and 37 were legitimised.

During that same year, the administration moved to adopt sanctionary measures in 42 cases, of which 11 were paid out. This resulted in €95,000 in fee collections.

Had you been in Milan recently, you might have spotted a few familiar faces from Formentera. Earlier this week a delegation from the island's tourism office embarked upon the city on the occasion of a tourism trade fair known in Italian as BIT (borsa internazionale del turismo) or in English as the International Tourism Exchange. Tourism councillor Alejandra Ferrer, member of the delegation, and Carles Bernús, head of the local tourism board (Patronat de Turisme), talked optimistically about the interest in Formentera being exhibited by this year's crowds.

“The reactions we're getting from visitors are reinforcing the optimism we already had on arrival,” reported Bernús, adding: “According to Eivissa airport arrival statistics released by AENA, Italian travellers increased by 8% between 2013 and 2014.”

“Our new promotional material has been tremendously well-received and a great deal of interest is being shown in the different accommodation options, especially the newer-looking lodgings and those that were granted the recent quality distinctions. Visitors are also taking time to look at the Formentera en Família and bike trail brochures.”

Meetings

Since Wednesday, Alejandra Ferrer has held meetings with tour operators (TUI Itàlia, Eden Viaggi and Alpitours), travel-oriented media outlets and heads of the Italian seat of the Spanish national office of tourism in the interest of coordinating visits by press and members of the blogosphere.

In addition to Milan's BIT, Formentera has had tourism agents at England's trade show for cycling aficionados, an event dubbed the London Bike Show. The representatives will greet English travellers with the new bike trail material as well as information about mountain biking courses being offered in Formentera, hoping in so doing to further increase the tide of visitors with Formentera in their sights.

Councillor of infrastructure, agriculture, livestock and fishing, Santi Juan, met this morning with Ángel Campuzano, head of the Balearic Islands division of Tragsa, to sign the order of construction for the future Farmers' Cooperative industrial space. With this final step complete, work on the new space can begin next week.

Councillor Juan explaned: “The industrial space for the Farmers' Cooperative is an essential element to the Council's rural improvement and renewal programme, a project which has also had the benefit of the cooperative's close colaboration. The unlaboured land use programme [known in Catalan as arrendament de terres – TN], is another measure included in this same programme.”

The new building has a cost of €614,000, of which, -Juan related- a third would come thanks to the work of the local action group for rural development in Eivissa and Formentera in the form of assistance from the UE Leader project.

Ángel Campuzano gave thanks to the Formentera Council “for confiding the project with Tragsa and allowing us to take part in the countryside renewal project” and confirmed, “construction will begin this next week.”

Also at the meeting was Miguel Muñoz, director of Tragsa Eivissa-Formentera and coordinator of the building project. Muñoz explained, “the finished space will have dimensions of 16 x 35 metres (roughly 500 sq. m.)) and – like traditional warehouse buildings – will be free of walls and columns”. Muñoz also informed that the the work would include electric and plumbing fittings.

For inquiries, Santiago Juan, councillor of agriculture, 667680252.

President of the Formentera Island Council, Jaume Ferrer Ribas, and councillor of culture Sònia Cardona Ferrer, have sent congratulations on behalf of the people of Formentera to professor emeritus at the Universitat de Barcelona and member of the philology department at the Institut d'Estudis Catalans Joan Veny i Clar for his recently-bestowed honour, the 2015 Premi d'Honor for Catalan literature.

The premi d'honor recognises the matchless efforts of Veny i Clar in the research and promotion of Catalan linguistics. Its recipient, a specialist in dialectology, has been a driving force in making the different territorial varieties of Catalan known to the greater population.

With highly-lauded linguistic studies comprising his oeuvre – Els parlars catalans, Introducció a la dialectologia and his forthcoming masterwork Atles Lingüístic del Domini Català, Veny i Clar has always paid special attention to the Catalan of the Pitiüsa Islands, studying and reflecting upon its particularities in numerous publications.