The president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, María Dolores Corujo, and the Minister of Public Works of the Government of the Canary Islands, Sebastián Franquis, visited the new facilities of the port of Playa Blanca this Friday morning, works that will expand these infrastructures and boost the inter-island maritime connectivity of the Island.
The Minister of Public Works, Transport and Housing of the Government of the Canary Islands, Sebastián Franquis, announced that the expansion works of the new port of Playa Blanca are entering their final stretch after executing more than 90% of the budget in order to make the facilities fully available to the public and users in early 2022. The regional minister went to the facilities still under construction to supervise the signing by the public entity Puertos Canarios of the partial reception of part of the new infrastructures, a reception that will improve the operation of the ferries that operate between Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.
"We are entering the last stage of the work, which will consist of modernizing and expanding the fishing and sports marina in the inner harbor, which will mean gaining more than one hundred moorings. The total completion of the work is scheduled for the beginning of 2022 and has involved an investment of 40 million euros," said the minister, "this work achieves the three objectives that every port infrastructure must have, which is to increase capacity, improve safety and quality of services offered."
The signing of the reception of Berths 2 and 3 of the port expansion will allow the commissioning of the new commercial dock, thanks to which the shipping companies will be able to carry out their operations on the new berthing line jointly. The shipping companies Fred Olsen and Naviera Armas must transfer their operations to this new dock in order to continue with the pending works in the inner harbor.
"Today, the partial reception of the expansion work will be resolved, which will allow the transfer of the ferries from the inner harbor to their new berths in the outer harbor in the coming days. These berths have a larger area for loading and unloading people and vehicles, as well as a new passenger station and parking, which will allow for greater fluidity in the transit of people and vehicles," explained Minister Franquis, "the port of Playa Blanca will also be safer because the ferries will be physically separated from the fishing and sports marina, thus avoiding any possibility of accident and allowing faster berthing and unberthing maneuvers."
Dolores Corujo pointed out the importance of these infrastructures to promote the connectivity of Lanzarote and to encourage free, sustainable and efficient travel, contributing to decongest maritime traffic on the Island.
On the other hand, the president stressed, with respect to the entry of cruise ships at the dock of Playa Blanca, that this new work will allow Lanzarote to have complementary facilities to those of Arrecife. "We must see our Island as a whole, with criteria of solidarity and distribution of resources, so there is no possibility of taking weight away from Yaiza, Arrecife or any conejero municipality", added Dolores Corujo.
The president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote has stressed the commitment of Minister Sebastián Franquis, which is reflected in the expansion of the port of Playa Blanca, in housing and in the speed that is giving to road projects on the island of regional competence. Corujo has referred to the renovated port of Playa Blanca as one of the "most important infrastructures in the Canary Islands in terms of passenger movement and connectivity with our neighboring island of Fuerteventura". "Lanzarote only moves forward when major agreements are reached, and this is proof of that," said the president of the Cabildo, referring to the broad support that this expansion had among the public institutions of Lanzarote and the Canary Islands.
Currently, Playa Blanca, with more than 1,250,000 passengers and about 200,000 vehicles in 2019, is one of the main ports in terms of traffic within the network of Puertos Canarios.
