Commission for the new airport visits Beja at the end of the month

Commission for the new airport visits Beja at the end of the month

The new citizen platform that defends Beja International Airport revealed today that the Independent Technical Commission (CTI) will visit the Alentejo airport infrastructure at the end of this month to assess its conditions on the ground.

The technicians “will measure locally” the conditions, because “many do not know the airport physically,” Manuel Valadas, from the driving committee of the citizen platform Yes to Beja International Airport, told Lusa news agency.

According to him, the visit of CTI to this airport infrastructure should take place “on the 27th or 28th” of this month and the citizens’ platform was “invited to accompany the work” of the technicians.

The citizen platform Yes to Beja International Airport learned of the scheduling of this visit during a meeting on Thursday with CTI, responsible for the strategic environmental assessment of the new Lisbon airport.

“We are making this journey, which is not easy, but yesterday [Thursday] we were given the understanding that Beja Airport has the possibility of having good news in a few months,” said Manuel Valadas.

According to the platform spokesman, during this meeting, the CTI members asked for “some more elements” and asked “several questions”, to which the Beja Airport supporters responded “gladly”.

“There was confusion that we were advocating that Beja Airport could be Lisbon Airport, but we said at the meeting that at no time did the platform advocate that Beja Airport was to replace Lisbon Airport,” he stressed.

In an interview with Lusa on 28 January, one of the coordinators of CTI, Professor Rosário Macário, revealed that Beja and Alverca were on the list of possible locations for the new Lisbon airport, after proposals were made to the commission, which will analyse them.

Created at the end of last year, the CTI is listening to “all entities with relevance to the issue” to reach a set of criteria that “will serve to analyse the various hypotheses,” explained Rosário Macário.

The platform spokesperson previously revealed that the structure delivered a memorandum, with “over 300 pages”, to the CTI, in which it presents its arguments in defence of the Alentejo infrastructure as a “sustainable solution” for the country.