The Board of Directors of the Port Authority of Las Palmas has decided this Thursday to reject the administrative concession requested by the company Lanzafuel, S.L. for the installation of a service station on a plot of 1,652.30 square meters located in Puerto de Naos, in Arrecife.
The mayor of Arrecife and member of the Port Authority Council, Yonathan de León, had already expressed his opposition to this urban land, located outside the port activity area, hosting a service station, and had defended its use for educational purposes.
In July, the Board of Directors decided to request a report from the Ministry of the Interior regarding the security situation that the National Police Station in Arrecife, located a few meters from the plot, would face if the aforementioned gas station were built as intended in this administrative concession file.
The report from the Ministry of the Interior, which was presented today to the members of the Council, proposed that the gas station not be authorized in that space for security reasons.
Furthermore, during the public display of this concession request, the Port Authority received different allegations that, based on safety criteria, did not consider it appropriate to approve the concession to build the gas station.
The mayor of Arrecife has celebrated this decision by the Port Authority, in line with what he has defended, where the concession for the gas station was rejected, and the path is now open, and closer, for that land to have a university building.
Yonathan de León has argued that this land, along with the Police Station and the headquarters of the San Ginés Brotherhood, should be allocated by the Port Authority for new university facilities within the strategy of revitalizing the port area of Arrecife with the blue economy, with a university study center in Nautical Studies, which has the advantage of the already existing, well-known School of Fisheries in the vicinity.
The Parliament of the Canary Islands has approved the creation of Bachelor's degrees in Nautical Studies, as a complement to other higher education courses already taught in Lanzarote, such as Nursing or Tourism.
Last spring, the Arrecife City Council agreed in plenary session to urge the Port Authority to cede the land of that plot, of 1,652.30 square meters, for the construction of a university center promoted by the public institutions of Lanzarote, and with the support of the Lanzarote Chamber of Commerce.