The £500k cycle lane in Europe that’s still being built 13 years after approval | World | News

A cycle lane costing £500k in a tourist destination loved by Brits has taken more than 13 years to build amid a number of botched jobs and delays.

The lanes in Alcudia Bay, Majorca, were given the go-ahead back in 2011 in order to increase cycle tourism, but they are still to be completed.

If it is completed, the lane will run from Alcudia Bay cycle lane, but communication breakdowns between the councils involved and Council of Majorca officials painting unusable lanes due to road defects with tree stumps pushing the lanes up have meant the cycle lane is still not built.

The poorly made lanes are said to have seen very few users, while councils have been arguing over how the lane will cross a bridge in Playa de Muro.

Authorities have also been grappling over who will stump up the £510,000 costs with government funding not forthcoming.

As the lane would pass through a number of different council areas, some authorities have taken umbridge at lanes making roads thinner and are refusing to allow the lanes to be wider than 1.5m.

There are also concerns the lane would see cottages demolished to extend the road and restaurants deprived of their terraces.

Away from arguments over the lanes themselves, the council disputes also stem from attempts to redraw boundary lines.

The arguments come despite most councils agreeing that the infrastructure should be built.

Miquel Porquer, the mayor of Muro, one of the towns which would be crossed by the cycle lane, said he was becoming fed up with waiting for the project to come to fruition.

He told the Majorca Daily Bulletin: “We’ve been waiting years for other authorities to carry out this project. 

“We were willing to spend 240,000 euros for separation barriers by the Albufera Nature Park, but we’ve stopped including this amount in the annual budgets because there are so many problems.”