Work on the long planned Super Borovets resort, close to Bulgaria’s capital Sofia, has been officially launched by the country’s Prime Minister, Serghei Stanishev, along with the former prime minister and opposition leader, at a ceremony this past week.

Super Borovets is an expansion of the original Borovets resort, which was for many year’s the country’s major ski centre until the huge international success of Bansko over the past five years.

The expanded complex will include 19 ski runs, with a total of 42 km (26 miles) of piste and lifts capable of carrying 37,000 tourists. There will be 4,000 holiday homes, and several hotels stretching over an area of 100,000 square metres.

The plans have been strongly criticised by environmental groups who claim the area, along with others close to Bulgaria’s other ski areas and the Black Sea Coast, originally designated protected national park land, has been omitted from Bulgaria’s submissions to the EC, which bit joined on January 1st this year, on which areas in the country should be protected from development under EC Law.