Scouts kicked out

THE Mallorca boy scouts are being forced to leave their home of the last three decades in Alcudia as the religious order that owns the land is planning to sell it.

For more than 30 years, the Scouts had been based in Gatamoix, an old farming colony histor‐ically occupied by work ‐ers on the Albufera lake.

Gatamoix was estab ‐lished in 1876 by British businessman Henry Robert Waring for the

New Majorca Land Com ‐pany to house its em ‐ployees.

The Escolapios religious order took over owner ‐ship of the site in 1975, eventually reaching an agreement with the Fun ‐dación Maria Ferret to home the island’s Scouts group.

But the order has in ‐formed the foundation that they have to vacate the premises before the end of June as the own ‐ers have new plans for

Proverb Of The

the site.

Spokespeople for the foundation report that they approached several public administrations to explore the possibility of buying the land to con ‐tinue offering the service to the Scouts, as it was impossible for them to pay the €900,000 at which the site has been valued.

Sadly, their requests were unsuccessful and they will now have to search for a new home.

ALGAIDA Council has announced an invest‐ment of €147,500 in 17 municipal improve‐ment projects chosen by residents.

The funds were allocated to this year’s ‘par‐ticipatory budget’ plan, where residents can vote on a series of proposals on which to spend part of the municipal funds and which was implemented in 2014.

The participation process resulted in seven proposals for Algaida itself, four for Pina and six for Randa, with the highest percentage of the budget allocated to the latter with €60,500 to be spent on improvements.

According to the Algaida Town Hall, the suggestions that received the most votes in all three areas shared the same basic objective ‐to create more shaded spots.

As a result, the children’s playground in Pina, Plaça Son Romaguera in Randa and CEIP Pare Bartomeu Pou college in Algaida will soon offer more shaded areas, with the latter

THE Spanish Hotel Technolo‐gy Institute (ITH) has drawn up a report on good practices for sustainability.

It refers to environmental, economic and social sustain‐ability and explains that the economy is currently under‐going an intense process of transformation.

The report has identified six aspects of environmental sus‐tainability, namely energy, fu‐els, water, waste, lighting and noise, encouraging switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources such as solar panels on roofs, reusing grey water from showers and sinks for flushing toilets, and cutting

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also to be improved with more green areas. Other winning proposals included creating new bicycle parking spaces in Algaida, improv‐ing car parking facilities in Randa, pedestrian‐izing Plaza Pina, improving street lighting and installing benches on Plaza Sitjar, among oth‐ers.

Sustainable hotels

down on light and noise pollu‐tion.

Many establishments in Mallorca have begun abiding by these guidelines, including the HM Palma Blanc that opened last year and was built with a series of features to maximises sustainability, including a system to reuse grey water.

With regards to social sus‐tainability, the report refers to another five areas ‐ support for local culture, decent work, participation, social actions and corporate transparency.

The study points out that the company must “be famil‐iar with and integrate the lo‐cal community in its activity” and that the tourism sector must offer a “healthy environ‐ment with favourable condi‐tions for its employees.”

Supplies dry up

FRESH fruit and vegetables could become very expensive in Mallorca over the coming weeks due to the severe drought conditions affecting most of mainland Spain.

Prices have been increasing gradually due to the com‐bined effects of inflation and higher production costs due to the war in Ukraine, with analysts predicting that the trend will continue even further unless it rains soon in areas such as Catalonia and Andalucia.

If production on the mainland is reduced due to the lack of rain, prices in the Balearic Islands are expected to increase even further as stocks will be much smaller. Although the Balearic Islands have so far not been too affected by the lack of rainfall, this April was the driest since records began.

THE Mallorca food sector is in urgent need of workers. The lack of available staff is said to be particularly serious regarding butchers, fish‐mongers and greengrocers. The entire food processing and distribution network is affected, from small shops to large supermarkets, as well as restaurants and hotels.

Analysts point out that the situation is made worse by the lack of specialist training pro‐grammes for these trades in the Balearic Is‐lands, and a team led by the Mallorca Chamber of Commerce this week travelled to Barcelona to meet with their counterparts at Mercabarna to study their training model with views to im‐ plement it in Mallorca.

The vice‐president of the Chamber and presi‐dent of its training department, Josep Lluís Aguiló, explains that companies have tradition‐ally been responsible for the training of their own workers, but that demand has spiralled and the only available vocational training (For‐mación Profesional, or FP in Spanish) centres available on the island are for catering, and they are ‘packed’.

Unlike other sectors, the food industry has not had the public support required to create a real training programme like the one in Barcelona, says Sr Aguiló.

THE implementation of hi ‐ low beds in hotel rooms will reduce the physical strain of cham ‐bermaids by up to 30 per cent, a new study has re ‐vealed.

According to research published by the Melià Hotels group, the adapt ‐able beds that must now be fitted in all hotels in the Balearic Islands by law under the new tourism legislation, will make life a lot easier for the ‘kellys’, as hotel room cleaners are known in Spanish.

In addition, they will re‐duce the time each bed takes to be made by 12 per cent, thus further helping to alleviate their workload.

The results of the study were presented last week in an event attended by regional Tourism and Em‐ployment councillor Iago Negueruela, who also an‐nounced the imminent creation of a centre for innovation in ergonomics specialising in the hospi ‐tality sector.

Sr Negueruela also re ‐vealed that up to 600 ho ‐tels in the Balearic Islands have already requested government grants to in ‐stall the new hi‐low beds, which as part of the first stage of the implementa ‐tion process starting on May 1 must account for 30 per cent of beds at five ‐ star hotels and 25 per cent for four ‐ star Su ‐perior establishments.