The municipality recalled that it requested, in March 2023, the termination of the contract signed with ESSE - Estajamento à Superfície e Subterrâneo, SA, alleging “gross violation of contractual obligations on the part of the concessionaire”, but the company filed an injunction requesting its suspension until there is a final decision on the main action.

The Loulé Administrative and Fiscal Court (TAF) has now made a decision in favor of the company, accepting ESSE's request to suspend the effects of the contract resolution presented by the municipality, until there is a final decision on the resolution request.

“The municipality of Vila Real de Santo António will continue to make every effort to defend the end of the concession contract for charged parking in the municipality. The termination of the contract was determined by the gross violation of contractual obligations by the concessionaire”, assured the municipality, in a press release sent to the Lusa agency.

The same source acknowledged that TAF's decision to accept the suspension of the decision to terminate the concession contract and maintain the concession constitutes “a significant setback for the interests” of the municipality, but stressed that it only has effect until a decision is taken. “final decision” on the legality of the termination of the contract requested by the municipality.

“Immediate termination of the charged parking concession contract is urgent and necessary to defend the interests of the municipality and its population, so the municipality will continue to use all legal and administrative means to achieve this objective, namely through the interposition of judicial appeal against the decision made by the TAF of Loulé”, stated the president of that Chamber of the district of Faro, Álvaro Araújo, cited in the note.

The municipality highlighted that the decision “only concerns the precautionary measure that the company ESSE took against the municipality of Vila Real” in order to suspend the effects of the resolution of the contract, approved in March 2023 by a deliberation of the Municipal Assembly, which was in charge of the Chamber to move forward with this action.

“And against this judicial decision of a precautionary nature, the municipality will file an appeal, using this judicial route with a view to reversing, for itself, the management of public parking”, announced the same source.

ESSE, which won the concession for charged parking in Monte Gordo and Vila Real de Santo António in 2015, for 30 years, contested the contract termination request presented by the Algarve Chamber, and the court now has to rule on the legality of the decision of the municipality.

“In this action, no judicial decision has yet been made, and the City Council will then wait for the normal development of the process regarding the end of the concession and understands that, in this context, the fairness of its arguments to end with a contract within the scope of the which the concessionaire grossly failed to comply with its contractual obligations, with the inherent harm to the interests of the population and the municipality”, he argued.