Caves at Cala Blanca a step nearer opening to the public

Following a judicial study by the University of the Balearic Islands, which concluded that the owners of the land under which caves were located were also the legal owners of the grottoes, the Councillor for Tourism, Vicente Fontestad, met the owners of the Cova de s'Aigo last week and is shortly to hold a similar meeting with the owners of the Cova de Na Megaré. The Council is initially proposing that the use of the caves be freely ceded so that they can be converted into a major tourist attraction for Ciutadella and Menorca and has received positive feedback from the first meeting with owners whose main concern was that their homes and land would not be affected by the use of the caves.

The Council is to commission a study into the viability of opening the caves to the public, the costs involved and the work that would be needed. The Council also wants to declare all the caves in the urbanisation of Cala Blanca (there are at least six) areas of social interest which would make it easier to open them to the public.

Once the Council has use of the caves (either through cession or expropriation) they will have to be made suitable for visitors; a project "that will cost a lot of money", according to Fontestad, but whose potential is enormous. Some studies have compared the caves at Cala Blanca to those in Drac, in Mallorca, long a major tourist attraction.