Hélder Martins was born in Querença and knows how the life in the interior of the Algarve is. With lots of experience in the tourism sector, he aims to improve the quality of tourism in Loulé as well as work on social, infrastructure and health sectors.

The Portugal News (TPN): Why did you decide to be a candidate for Loulé in the local elections?

Hélder Martins (HM): I am a candidate for the City Hall because I have always been associated with the word “fazer” [to do]. I have always been linked to projects in various areas, and the idea is to make this happen.

I think I can combine my professional and personal experience in a great municipality, which is Loulé. Secondly, I have always been linked to tourism, the main economic activity of Loulé.

Speaking to many people, I realised that people want a change. In Loulé, the autarchic cycles change from 12 to 12 years, because there is fatigue, and then there is a change, and I think it is wholesome.

To sum up, I think that my ability and my experience can help a lot in the development of this municipality.

TPN: Why is your candidature different than the others?

HM: First of all, there is this fatigue. Secondly, during 12 years, whoever was in the autarchy managed 2 billion euros and I still wonder what were the significant investments that were able to change the Council. There is none.

My focus in this program will be the people and the companies. On the one hand, the people, for 12 years there was not made a single elderly home in Loulé. The ones that I visited, almost all of them, have 70 people on the waiting list, while there are institutions that have 200 OAPs on the waiting list. The same applies to day-care centres.

In my opinion, nothing was done in the social scenario. In the scenario of companies, any company that wants to come to Loulé has no place to do it. There is no business area.

Students are attending classes in porta cabins; the health centre receives patients in porta cabins and even sports institutions have porta cabins.

With 2 billion euros, nothing was done, so I present a candidacy with a program that will be known in a short time.

TPN: Regarding transports, what are your plans for Faro Airport?

HM: Loulé has an aerodrome, which resulted from the extinction of the Vilamoura aerodrome and there is a project that the Socialist Party is taking away that I want to maintain. The aerodrome works essentially for private aviation, that today, has a great significance in the airport of Faro.

A citizen who wants to come to the Algarve and spend 15 days in the Algarve cannot leave the plane in Faro; therefore having an infrastructure to do so, benefiting from private partnership, would be beneficial.


In relation to the Faro airport, it is the main infrastructure that brings tourists to the region and what has happened recently is regrettable. If a company changes its software, it is expected to change it for better. What happened there was the opposite, it changed for the worse.

The reading time of a passport was 7 seconds for someone who is outside the European Union and it went to 14. A citizen from China can be 15 minutes.

With the increase of traffic, with the planes more and more full, if in an hour 2,000 passengers land at the airport of Faro, which is normal, it would have exploded.

TPN: What solution can you find for it?

HM: Due to pressure, there was the creation of a new space, today it is possible to divide, a part of the passengers comes on one side and the other on the other, the step is to put all the equipment that exists, mainly online, which was closed, only the cabinets were open. Doing everything online would solve part of the problem.

The problem is that normally those positions were closed, or due to lack of human resources, or for internal problems, I do not know, I think with the positions that we have today and with the reinforcement of the people who work there and with a deepening of the experience of the PSP. If all these positions were created so that there is a division of the passengers, and also allowing them to do the self-check-in.

TPN: What can you bring to tourism in Loulé?

HM: Quality. It is unbearable that inside a resort I have the best quality and compete with any destination in the world, but outside of it I have the worst. I cannot have an access from Faro Airport to Quinta do Lago, which passes through a road which is an agricultural road or pass through Almancil. I cannot have an interior which is so beautiful, full of illegal houses and the City Hall has not done anything about it

TPN: Do you think that investing in tourism can affect the housing sector?

HM: I do not believe in that because there have been no public policies in this regard. One note: as the president of AHETA, I have come to explain to the government, in the context of the New Law of the Soil, the possibility of having housing.

In other words, today I cannot capture talent if I do not provide housing. Housing is expensive, and as much as I pay well, the amount that I spend to stay here implies that I will choose another place anywhere. Today, even in the country, there is tourism everywhere.

I can tell hotels that 50 apartments are needed, so they build the apartments here and these apartments would not be available to sell or rent. It is for their use and the staff would be living there. Having a shuttle that transports them would take a significant load off them.

Public policy, whether from the government or from the Câmara, will have to combine what is the activity that people have, providing them with cheaper prices.

TPN: How could you define the foreign population in Loulé?

HM: The foreigner who chooses the Algarve chooses for the quality of life, for the quality of the air, for the gastronomy, and for security.

I see the integration of all these people in a very positive sense. They are people with a spectacular experience from other continents, from other countries, and that has to be taken advantage of.

I see this in a very positive sense. The second part and it is another example of what happened recently. Many of these foreigners also choose the Algarve as an investment.

These people pay their taxes, they occupy the house for six months, and in the other six months, they can make a profit. The Partido Socialista tried to completely cease this activity, but I am in favour of it.

We have to be friends with them, and not enemies; therefore, the Câmara Municipal, and the entities they deal with, have to be more and more friendly, have to be more and more unbureaucratic.

TPN: You mention that people look for security, what are your plans in that sector?

HM: The municipality also has to promote the construction of housing in the three cities for elements of the police forces that do not need to be offered, but be charged an acceptable price, because most of the agents that we find today in the Algarve are from the North.

At the same time the means that exist are not sufficient and the municipal police is a project that is at the beginning and that I want to implement and I have an objective during the first four years to have a body with 55 agents, the municipal police have less bureaucratic burden than GNR and can walk on the street and can act in many situations.

The second important part in this aspect is also video surveillance. I watched, accompanied and went to the inauguration of the video surveillance system in Albufeira and that system works perfectly.

Author

Currently, the Deputy Editor at The Portugal News, Bruno G. Santos, is really interested in national politics. With a degree in Journalism and Communication, he also loves to write about different topics like Portuguese culture, society and other current affairs. Press card: 8463. 

Bruno G. Santos