The British couple who are battling to rescue their Armona island home from the bulldozers, primed to be sent in by Sebastião ‘demolition man’ Teixeira from Portugal’s Environment Agency, have come out fighting their corner with international press coverage and an August 17th  demonstration planned in front of Olhão council’s front door.

James Tod and Paul Roseby, whose half-built luxury home has been deemed illegally sited and must be removed, are putting pressure on Environment Minister, João Matos Fernandes, whom, they say, "can solve the problem with a stroke of his pen."

The mayor of Olhão, António Pina, has been mentioned in The Times. Has there been recognition of his good works, his film star looks, or his continuing abuse of the electoral law for local councils?

Nothing so mundane - the mayor is mentioned in The Times article by Graham Keeley in Madrid in the first salvo in a battle to preserve and legalise the Armona island ‘dream home’, owned by a British couple who face the imminenbt propspect of seeing it torn down anytime from August 1st.

The dream of owning a home on the Ria Formosa island of Armona, lies in tatters for the British couple whose half-built property is the centre of a planning row that exposes Olhão's ratepayers to a potential €15 million compensation bill.

The local council gave planning permission to Paul Roseby and James Tod to remove two old buildings and to create a modern home, a dream property on Armona overlooking the Ria Formosa where they could relax and take time out from their busy working lives. Roseby is the CEO of the National Youth Theatre in London and James Tod is a Broadway and West End producer.

Olhão’s commercial fishing association has pointed out that, despite the long-term ban on harvesting shellfish in the Ria Formosa area due to the alleged presence of toxins, it is not aware that the local population is suffering from widespread poisoning from consuming illicit supplies.

The commercial fishing sector is banned from harvesting shellfish but individual pickers who hawk buckets of shellfish in the backstreets of the city have yet to induce an outbreak of diarrhea, sweating and stomach cramps among willing buyers.

The President of the Republic of Portugal, no less, is to visit the settlement of Hangares on the Ria Formosa island of Culatra.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa (pictured left) has agreed to visit the cluster of houses to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the creation of the settlement that recently has been one of the focal points of the State's demolition programme for Ria formosa island properties.

The Ministry of the Environment has decided that a property on Armona, one of the Algarve’s Ria Formosa islands, should never have been given planning permission by Olhão council and that the Portuguese Environmental Agency (APA) is correct in its decision to see the property demolished.

On March 18th, Olhão mayor, António Pina, denied that the building licence issued to the British couple was flawed and he called on the Minister of the Environment, Jorge Matos Fernandes, to understand the situation and halt the APA’s plan to take administrative possession of the seaside property, prior to having it torn down.

The contractor employed by Polis Litoral Ria Formosa, today began demolishing buildings in the historic WWI settlement of Hangares on the island of Culatra.
 
According to a statement from the Ministry of the Environment, there are 24 buildings that are in the public maritime domain zone and which therefore will be removed with 14 targeted for today and the remaining ones later this week.

The Maritime Police fielded 80 personnel this morning to oversee the demolition of 19 seized properties on the Ria Formosa island of Culatra, a process that will take two weeks.

The 06:00 wake-up from the police call saw many residents of Farol obliged to leave their properties located close to those targeted for destruction.  For safety reasons, islanders were made to stand outside the safety perimeter with the demolition crews arriving at around 07:30.