The Secretariat informed the Bureau that it had not received a response from the State Party to its request to provide information on the new development proposal for a marina in the Bay of Angra. The Director of the Cultural Heritage Division of UNESCO pointed out that a mission to the site was recently carried out by an expert, the Co-ordinator of the UNEP Action Plan for the Mediterranean, at the invitation of the Mayor and Municipality of Angra do Heroismo, who are responsible for the approval of the project. The expert has transmitted a report to the Secretariat.
ICOMOS informed the Bureau that the marina project that was initiated in 1995, was now under construction, but that it had been brought to the attention of the World Heritage Centre and ICOMOS only recently. ICOMOS expressed its serious concern about the impact of the project on the World Heritage values of the Town as well as on the submarine heritage of the Bay, which is full of historic shipwrecks.
In addition to the construction of the marina, the reconstruction of the waterfront of the city is also taking place. ICOMOS expressed its concern that, as a result, many of the characteristic features of the waterfront are going to be destroyed.
The Bureau requested the Chairperson to send a letter to the Portuguese authorities expressing the serious concern of the Bureau about the new construction and requesting full information about the project by 15 September 1998. It also requested ICOMOS to undertake an assessment mission and to submit its findings to the twenty-second extraordinary session of the Bureau.