Over the weekend the CDU defended the beginning of the process for the creation of new parishes in the Autonomous Region of Madeira.
Through direct contact with residents living in Álamos, located within the municipality of Funchal, Ricardo Lume stated that over time the population of the area has claimed that they are a separate parish, as, from the mid-twentieth century, persistent development work carried out in the area has in effect divided the locale between the parishes of Santo António and São Roque.
This is not the first case, as over time several localities within the municipality of Funchal have grown considerably due to infrastructure changes and population migration from one parish to another, leaving parishes such as Nazaré and Amparo (Funchal) and Garachico in Câmara de Lobos with new parish statuses.
Remembering that of the 54 parishes existing in RAM, only two were created after the autonomic regime, more specifically the parishes of the Ilhas (Santana) and the Jardim do Serra (Câmara de Lobos), and therefore, Ricardo Lume explained the administrative division of the territory has “basically petrified since the nineteenth century!”
The CDU considers that this is the right time to restart the processes of creating new parishes and, to this end, considers it essential to have a strategy promoted by the Regional Government, which also includes Municipal Councils, Parish Councils, and civil society, “so that the administrative management of the territory meets the realities of the 21st century and not an administrative division inherited from the nineteenth century.”
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
