Deputies from the Infrastructure, Mobility and Housing Committee today approved requests to hear from Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP) and minister Miguel Pinto Luz about the route of the high-speed line in Gaia, according to a parliamentary source.
According to a source from that committee of the Assembly of the Republic, the PSD’s request for “a hearing of IP Infraestruturas de Portugal, SA, on the Porto-Lisbon High Speed Line (Porto/Oiã section)” and the PS’s request for a “hearing of the Minister of Infrastructure and Housing for clarification on the change in the location of the Gaia Station on the LAV Porto – Lisbon” were unanimously approved today.
At issue is an alternative proposal for the Gaia high-speed line station, whose concession contract signed by the parties states that it will be in Santo Ovídio, but which the signatory consortium AVAN Norte (Mota-Engil, Teixeira Duarte, Alves Ribeiro, Casais, Conduril and Gabriel Couto) wants to build outside the planned location, in Vilar do Paraíso, in an area of National Ecological Reserve and National Agricultural Reserve.
Last week, the spokesperson for the Association of Companies in the Industrial Zone of São Caetano, in Gaia, reported to Lusa that the high-speed line project “is full of opacity”, urging the Government to “assume its responsibilities” and agreeing, in a parliamentary hearing, with the existence of “blackmail”.
The association believes that changing the location of the station, with more surface layout, implies a change in the route and expropriations not initially foreseen in the industrial zone of São Caetano.
The Environmental Conformity Report of the Execution Project (RECAPE) for the Porto – Oiã section of the high-speed line entered public consultation today on the participa.pt portal, and is available until November 11th.
The number of demolitions planned in the high-speed line project between Porto and Oiã is 236, of which 185 homes and 45 companies, according to RECAPE.
IP is carrying out a “technical and legal analysis” of the consortium’s proposal for the Gaia high-speed station, confirming that it has received elements outside of those submitted in the public tender.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) told Lusa in September that it financed the high-speed line based on the proposal that complies with the specifications of the public tender, that the proposal initially submitted by the consortium “reflects the depth and specifications approved during the public tender process and reflected in the project’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)”, and that “any material change to the project would require a formal review on the part of creditors and authorities relevant”.
The Porto-Oiã section of the high-speed line received financing from the EIB of 875 million euros, with the total cost of the section being 1,661 million euros.
The location of the Gaia high-speed station in Santo Ovídio, with connection to the two metro lines (Amarela and Rubi), and the solution of a road-rail bridge over the Douro are planned from September 2022, when the first presentation of the high-speed line project.
Minister Miguel Pinto Luz said on October 11 that “today, for the State, the station will be in the location that was planned”, but recalled that the specifications allowed “optimizing solutions”, after considering it “important to clarify” the issue in legal and legal terms, in September.
In April, the Government assured that “any possible change will have to be fully safeguarded from a legal point of view, be in full accordance with the requirements of the specifications and ensure the agreement of the municipalities”.
The first phase (Porto-Soure) of the high-speed line in Portugal should be ready in 2030, with the second phase (Soure-Carregado) expected to be completed in 2032, with a connection to Lisbon via the Northern Line.
The connection from Porto to Vigo, in Galicia (Spain), scheduled for 2032, will have stations at Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport, Braga, Ponte de Lima and Valença (Viana do Castelo district).
In total, according to the previous government, the costs of investment in the Lisbon-Valença axis are around seven to eight billion euros.