Seven new marinas (and 4,000 berths) in Lazio. Yes, but when?

The Lazio Regional Council has given the green light to the new Plan of Ports of Regional Economic Interest. A program document that envisions 7 new ports (in the municipalities of Tarquinia, Montalto di Castro, Ladispoli, Ponza, Latina – Rio Martino -, Terracina and Formia) for more than 4,000 berths, enhanced nautical services and a strategic vision for the future of recreational boating. It’s all there in theory, but what is the timeline for implementation?

Bring in Lazio, we hope!

We have been arguing for years in the pages of the Giornale della Vela that marinas and marinas are the real crucial hubs for spreading nautical culture and the pleasure of going by sea in Italy. Creating modern and welcoming facilities along the more than 8,000 kilometers of our coastline is absolutely crucial, not only to boost coastal tourism, but also to revitalize the economy of a country that lies at the center of the Mediterranean.

Always for years we have been calling for the network of our own landings to make “system” with clear and uniform rules throughout the territory, transparent concessions, qualified managers, fair mooring prices and services, and common and widespread practices for the protection of the marine environment. As is the case in Croatia, Spain and France.

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Lazio on ports changes course: here’s how

All this is finally realized today by the institutions as well. In 2023, the government approved the famous “Sea Plan,” which recognizes tourist ports as an “industrial” sector capable of supporting the economic and social development of the country’s tourism and proposes a unified direction. And now, on the wave of that national policy document, here are the regions on the subject of ports also beginning to move.

This has been done, for example, in Lazio, where the Regional Council recently approved the so-called “Plan of Ports of Regional Economic Interest,” a project that has been awaited for years and that aims to redesign the coast’s tourist ports. So let’s see what it provides and what concrete benefits it could bring to shipowners, skippers and crews sailing or landing in the region.

The goals of the new Ports Plan

Lazio’s Ports of Regional Economic Interest Plan is part of the Regional Mobility and Transportation Plan (PRMTL), was finalized in 2015 and updated in 2023, before completing the process for final approval by the Regional Council last September. In fact, it is a sector plan that aims to create a new model of development of the Lazio coasts starting precisely from the ports and tourist landings of these coasts. Structures that are “stopped” at the level of laws and address at the previous Ports Plan that dates back to 2007, a good 28 years ago. It is worth pointing out that.

In short, the new document represents a sort of programmatic “upgrade” that starts from the need to integrate Lazio’s port system with the rail and road apparatus and with the occasion strives to rethink and develop the new and existing landings in a strategic key for the region’s economy and tourism, directing their evolution in terms of quality of services, management, coordination and respect for the environment and local communities (inhabitants, fishermen, shipyards, associations).

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What benefits for boaters

On a practical level, the new Lazio Ports Plan starts with increasing the number of berths available in the region and envisions the creation of 7 new landings in the municipalities of Tarquinia, Montalto di Castro, Ladispoli, Ponza, Latina (Rio Martino), Terracina, and Formia. Each landing place on paper is expected to offer about 300-500 berths, for a total of about 2,500-4,000 new berths.

The new network of ports should thus make it possible to overcome one of the main factors of paralysis highlighted in recent years with respect to the development of the “Blue Economy” in Lazio and constituted precisely by the lack of berths, despite the continuous and constant growth of the relative demand in recent years.

Ports as strategic realities for coasts

Within each port, according to the new Plan, services offered to boaters, such as boat maintenance, technical assistance, fuel and water supply, and electricity supply, should therefore be enhanced. So should port infrastructure, such as docks, piers, lighting and signage, be made safer. Space should also be given to promoting eco-friendly practices to reduce environmental impact, such as the use of renewable energy, waste management, and protection of marine ecosystems.

Also according to the new Ports Plan, a clear cooperative procedure should be identified between public administrations and entities, which also actively involves the citizenry, for the provision of new regional port infrastructure and the expansion and upgrading of existing ones. And finally, an information system should be developed for storing, monitoring and analyzing data pertaining to all regional port facilities.

All very nice. But with what timing?

In short, what lies ahead in the coming years for sailors gravitating to the Latium area are more moorings available to keep the boat or stop during cruises along the coast and on the islands. But also more modern, qualified, transparent and rational landings at the management level, capable of creating jobs, boosting the area’s economy and encouraging nautical tourism. Above all, ports and landings with a new “vision” that looks both at the practical needs of those who sail and at the future of a country that, in order to relaunch itself in the Mediterranean, cannot neglect the commitment to fully exploit the sea resource.

Since, however, we at the Giornale della Vela are not satisfied with fine words, even if certified in an official document, with respect to the new Lazio Ports Plan we remain with a big question: what is the timetable for the realization of all this? Surely for each new landing place there will be the ballet of the maritime state concessions of the Region and the competent local authorities, then the complex administrative procedures, including the Conference of Services. Long times, stumbles and unknowns during these procedures, it is known, are always around the corner.

We have already recounted this in our recent investigation of “ghost ports,” that is, projects that no matter how loudly announced, financed and approved by agencies and institutions, have never found light. Despite everything, we want to be positive and we are definitely rooting for the new ports in Lazio. But together with our community of readers, as it were, we remain on guard….

David Ingiosi