Rotarvator: Theme park scepticism

The first rule of any plan for a new development, be it major or minor, be it housing or commercial, or be it theme park, is that the environmentalist group GOB will find some reason to get it strangled before it’s even born.

The theme park between Llucmajor and Campos would be illegal. Well, what a surprise. You wouldn’t need to be intimately acquainted with the arcane nature of Mallorcan land law to yourselves be able to announce that the plan was illegal. You wouldn’t, because somewhere along the legal line it’s almost bound to be illegal. Everything is in Mallorca, if you look hard enough.

What might come as a shock to GOB, however, is that legal objections may no longer hold much sway. Illegal? Fair enough, we’ll make it un-illegal, we being the regional government. GOB is in danger of waging wars it has not the slightest possibility of winning. Has it not noticed who’s running the island now?

The environment bit is not what really interests about the theme park plans. The first rule of any plan for a new development involving foreign investors, who may not be immediately well-known, is to assign to them the possibility of their “doing a Davidson” and to look hard enough to find some reason, however tenuous, to support the Davidson theory.

In case you need reminding, Davidson was Paul Davidson, he who made fools out of Real Mallorca football club (not, admittedly, that difficult to do) with his wild ambitions to buy the club. The few fools who weren’t taken in hook, line, sinker and plunger by the otherwise-known-as “Plumber” were the Spanish press. They were hostile to him from the outset. Rightly as it turned out. But now, the chance to find a further example of “doing a Davidson” is leading the press to express scepticism and to dig for support to justify it.

What we are getting, therefore, are questions as to business credentials (not unreasonable) and to hints of some sort of Rotarian carve-up (almost certainly utterly unreasonable).

Setting aside any proclivity for xenophobia (and many a Mallorcan is guilty of it), the Rotarian ruse is extraordinary. Or, on the face of it, it is. To explain: The main man behind the Theme Park Group (TPG) is one Per Michael Pedersen. It just so happens that he is a Rotarian. So also is the president of the Balearics, José Bauzá. QED, some sort of accommodation of a Rotarian nature.

To understand the Rotary angle, over and above any hugely dubious suggestions of influence being wielded, one needs to appreciate a spot of Rotarian history, especially where the Spanish are concerned, because they have form. It was Spanish bishops in 1928 who, convinced that the Rotarians were “satanist” and “execrable”, got the then Pope on-message enough to go along with the idea and thus bracket them with the masons.

The Catholic Church has since softened its stance, but there remains a tendency to equate Rotarians to the masons. Some might be both, but few would be their numbers. In the Balearics, there are said to be around only 400 masons. Rotary International, on the other hand, has any number of members locally. As its regional co-ordinator said in a recent interview, they have “nothing to do” with masons.

But in the scramble to find some means of supporting scepticism, poor old Pedersen’s Rotary membership makes him a target for the seekers after a new “Davidson Effect”. I can accuse Bauzá of many things, and do accuse and will continue to do so, but to suggest that there is anything more to the coincidence that he and Pedersen are both members of Rotary International is absurd.

Where there is more reason for scepticism relates to the business credentials. Pedersen has been involved with grand plans for a commercial centre in the Danish town of Greve. They have ground to a halt because of local town hall objections. But to use this as a rod with which to beat him is also pretty absurd. How many developments in Mallorca grind to a halt because of objections, be they from GOB or whoever?

What matters, or should do, are the financing of the theme park, the partners involved (and they have ample and relevant experience) and the plans themselves. It is these which raise my own doubts, such as the notion of the park being open most of the year, but they are practical ones, nothing more.

The worry that another Davidson might be done is understandable, but Davidson was some sort of fantasist. The theme park may have its fantasy world section, but it is a very different beast. As for the Rotary stuff. Just forget it.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Theme For An Old Theme Park

Would you go to a theme park in Inca? Would you go to anything in Inca? The market brings in plenty of visitors, but it is a generally unlovely town, stuck in the centre of the island and filthy hot at the height of summer. Nevertheless, an old theme is to be revisited – that of a theme park.

This is the sort of thing that Mallorca could do with more of. Whether Inca would be the right location, or whether it would be the right sort of theme park; well, these are legitimate questions. The mayor of Inca is to make representations to a Danish company which had previously been interested in a theme park development on the island.

The story of the theme park goes back a number of years. In 2002, a plan for a park in Inca was halted on environmental grounds. The same company, Theme Park Group, turned its attention to a potential development in Calvia, one that caused an almighty great enviro stink. It, too, was abandoned. There was talk of its being revived, but this time in Campos where, you might recall, there has been yet another eco-controversy surrounding yet another golf course. Moreover, it would seem that the company at one point had an option to buy the Son Bosc finca in Muro, the site of the golf farce. Could you imagine the uproar that would have caused? It’s a great shame they didn’t buy it. The sport alone from the warring parties would have been wonderful to behold. A theme park in Muro would have made far more sense than a golf course, but not of course to the enviro-ists, various tree-huggers and bee-eating birds.

That the Inca project has resurfaced has to do with the creation of a third industrial estate on which there is to be provision for entertainment. It may also have to do with a shift in attitude at the Council of Mallorca under the land plan. The boss of Theme Park Group once asked whether Mallorca wanted a theme park, the answer to which seemed to be no. But now there might be a yes.

However, the report on Inca’s new interest from “Ultima Hora” refers to 50,000 square metres of land on the industrial estate being given over to entertainment. Now just think about this. If you are familiar with the Bellevue complex in Puerto Alcúdia, that stands on some 200,000 square metres of land, sufficient to put up a decent-sized theme park perhaps. But on a quarter of the land? That doesn’t give you much theme or park. Unless the report is wrong, it is hard to see how the company would be interested. When it was talking to Inca before, it had in mind some 900,000 square metres. This was reduced substantially, by a third, when the Calvia alternative arose, but this would also have stripped the theme park of an aquatic element.

A theme park has to be on a grand scale. And grand scale is pertinent when you consider the colossal “Gran Scala” in the desert near Zaragoza, a development that would have Mallorca’s hoteliers salivating in anticipation, far more so than a damn golf course here or there, were something similar to be created on the island, which it wouldn’t be. (Gran Scala, when and if it is finished, is due to occupy more than 20 times the land area of the original Inca theme park plan.)

Mallorca can ill afford to turn down the sort of projects that Theme Park Group had in mind. The smaller Calvia development would have represented investment of almost 200 million euros and the creation of 3,000 jobs. What the original Inca one would have entailed, Heaven only knows. And we are unlikely to ever know, just as it seems unlikely that the company would accept something as mini as Inca now wants.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.