Praia da Rocha in Portimao has pledged to offer over 1300 parking places for the locals as well as – and especially – the millions of tourists that flood the resort annually.

The administration has signed contracts with the local major landowners, especially with Grupo Espirito Santo, which will allow a free parking lot with almost 1000 parking places just 500 meters from the beach.

In the central area of Praia da Rocha, CMP will introduce taxed parking with the aim of increasing the spots to be vacated and occupied by others in the town. The administration also considered the implementation of a residency card, which would allow stationing in an area for a given amount of time, but no clear resolution was reached.

The new subterranean parking lot which has been in construction and is nearly ready to welcome cars will provide over 280 parking spots right in the center of Praia da Rocha. The parking places here respond to the various needs of various drivers: they are both commercial and regular spots, for large or small vehicles, meat for tourists, residents, commercial entities and workers alike, catering for the necessities of all.

One thing is certain: this summer, it is Easy Parking in Praia da Rocha. One last thing to consider: if you’re travelling to the Algarve, you are going to need a car to park in the first place, so you might be just in time to employ the services of a local car hire company or at least get a transfer.

Everybody is taken aback by this decision, residents, visitors and shop-owners alike.  Shop-owners especially are quite vocal about it because they claim that the idea is not only not lucrative but it is actually causing losses, alleging that restaurants are seeing less traffic adding that paid parking is also putting potential shoppers off.

This idea was challenged last year when a group of shop-owners from the up-market Quinta Shopping and the adjacent Bougainvillea Plaza shopping malls joined together and when to the mayor of Loule.

The meeting resulted in the idea of taxing parking spots being withdrawn much earlier than planned and the group thought that the concept was completely scrapped, apparently they thought wrong.

On the other side of the coin, the administrator of the municipal company which manages public parking has said that the idea of taxing the mall parking was meant to guarantee the availability of parking places for the more demanding clients on a permanent case.

He continued to explain that 75 percent of all parking is still free of charge for any client or employee at all times, even when considering the fact that there is demand for parking in the area which far exceeds the availability of existing spaces, so the system was implemented in order to guarantee some free parking spots – 85 spots – for those demanding clients who are also willing to pay in order to ensure they can park their cars as close to the entrance as possible.