Dear Editor,
Friday, another dash with death on the IC1, including a large HGV overtaking me when he should not, forcing an approaching van to use the hard shoulder, and doing 90kph plus.
Arriving home, to relax, I pick up the Algarve Resident and there is the headline “Road safety top priority” and a staged photo opportunity for the Civil Governor!
Sorry, I don’t need free tickets. I drive safely so as to live! What would help me is some policing.
Last week, seven GNR standing without fluorescent jackets stopping vehicles at one of their regular spots on the IC1 (yes, we all know which ones).
Another day last week, two at another spot and, the same day, four GNR further down the road. How does this Sra Gomes help road safety? It certainly is not policing.
Road offences are crimes, dangerous ones. You can kill more people with a vehicle than with a knife. But the same lack of ability, interest, extends to street crime, robberies, bag snatching etc.
But Chris Graeme’s report last week (p11) suggests that there is no police training given in Portugal as most of northern Europeans would recognise it.
Indeed, like many, I’ve reported crimes and felt, clearly, the total lack of interest by GNR staff; after all, I was disturbing their TV viewing. A view backed up by Brian Beckwith in his letter last week.
This is all bad enough but it also affects our major industry, our one wage earner – tourism and people coming to live here.
We have nothing else, very regretfully, though we need to diversify, both in our type of tourism and new ways.
Watching Dragon’s Den (BBC2), I was struck by the chance that one of the dragons could be persuaded to bring new inventions, high quality export ideas, people, to the Algarve; contributing to jobs, exports, housing , education etc. We need new ideas
On p2 last week, you note that golf visitors who are predominately British and high spenders, often buying villas here, are down, as is all tourism; and incoming EC residents.
If one wants an illustration of the problem, in last week’s edition, there was an advert for a new villa, “reduced by 60%”, yet what is being done?
Is it not time that the chief exec of our tourist board got out and had some workshops, in different parts, inviting businesses, residents, with ideas to join in a dialogue?
We have a lot to offer, as Sr de Azevedo says in the interview on p4; IF we wake up and, as he says, don’t continue to ruin our Algarve (e.g. Salgados). Perhaps you will invite him to an in depth, challenging interview.
In a recent interview, from the BBC Breakfast programme (Algarve Resident, July 16), you give figures suggesting that the tourist board estimates that the Algarve has five million tourists annually and that three million are from the UK.
Yet you get the impression from many that the biggest influx is Portuguese, despite all the figures, break down of revenue (2/3 EC, 1/3 Portuguese) Our response? It is shown in your news story about a forthcoming festival in Lagos, where, at the end, you give a website “available only in Portuguese”!
In the broadcast, Sr. Aires, head of the tourism board, is quoted as saying, “this (tourism, from UK mainly) is our main industry, that’s what we have to offer and we’re working hard to be an attractively priced destination.” (Sorry, Sr. Aires, that is not the only thing we should be).
In your letters, you include one from Victor da Cal; scathing about Portuguese attitudes (to animals) and raising the question: “Do foreign residents realise the power they hold over events because of the many millions of Euros, desperately needed by the government that they bring into the country?”
The writer is not English … but a Portuguese! I would rather work with Portuguese like him, real, than the party line, staged photo opportunity of the civil governor, where all is perfect; or Sr Aires who, despite knowing where our revenue comes from, is out of touch.
Meanwhile, in the last issue (July 23), P12, you give a list which includes carrying only copy documents.
While this is indeed UK pratice/police advice and wise for security reasons, i.e. car being stolen or documents, which happens here, I wonder if that is correct here.
My experience is that like all government bodies, the GNR will only accept the originals and an instant fixed fine follows a failure to present them.
This obviously needs clarification.
D Taylor-Smith
Algarve
Editor’s note: Dear D Taylor-Smith, afpop’s recommendation for people to carry copies of official documents when travelling “locally” is valid. A GNR spokesman told the Algarve Resident this week that copies of documents are accepted but advised that these should be authenticated. The bottom line is, nowadays we should all be extra vigilant and, unfortunately, respond with suspicion when approached by strangers on car parks or anywhere for that matter. Also, don’t miss the August edition of the Algarve Goodlife Magazine, out now, where you will find an in-depth interview with José Pearce de Azevedo.
