Walter Finch
WORK continues apace on the land reclamation project on Gibraltar’s eastern flank, with a recent image capturing just how much the coastline has been transformed.
According to reports, some 61,711 metric tons of stone and rubble have been tipped into the sea to create the foundations of a new 4.5 square kilometre marina development.
Work began on reclaiming land for the Eastside project at the start of August and the Gibraltar Port Authority recently announced that it would continue into September.
The vast new project, located between the Hassan Centenary Terrace towers to the north and Eastern Beach to the south, will boast a marina with space for 600 moorings, a hotel, around 1,300 residential homes – 100 of them affordable – and a business park with thousands of parking spaces.
It is scheduled for completion in 2026.
The project is being undertaken by TNG Global, a Gibraltar-based international real estate developer which paid €103 million to win the contract.
It is owned by Vietnamese investor Tuan Tran and has backing from the Vietnam Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank.
The Eastside project is just the latest manifestation of Gibraltar’s breakneck growth, which is forecast to contribute nearly €3 billion towards the territory’s GDP.
Yet the project has been met with howls of complaint from across the border in Spain, where it has been slammed by all comers.
Environmentalists have complained that the project is being carried out in the Eastern Strait Special Conservation Zone (ZEC), an ecological zone that is home to protected species.
It directly threatens the patela ferruginia, a type of limpet ‘with the same protection as the Iberian lynx’ that is only known to grow in the area.
There are also concerns that creation of a breakwater on Gibraltar’s east side could have knock on effects down the Spanish coastline, causing a loss of sand in the beaches of La Linea and San Roque and potentially affecting fishing and tourism.
Then there’s the institutionalists, who object on the grounds that the development is against international law.
Various international law experts have urged the Spanish government to not ‘waste a unique moment’ to try to paralyse the project as part of a ‘negotiating weapon’ in the post-Brexit talks with Gibraltar and the UK.
And the nationalists rage that it is a violation of Spanish sovereign territorial waters, as they believe all the waters around Gibraltar are theirs.
The Spanish navy sent a warship to enter British Gibraltar Territorial Waters and pass by the land reclamation project on August 6 only days after work commenced.
And Algeciras mayor Jose Ignacio Landaluce complained of ‘harassment’ that Gibraltar has carried out in ‘our waters against patrol boats of the Civil Guard and the Navy.’
Yet despite all the complaints and objections, so far no concrete step has been taken that might bring development to a halt.
