Rebuilding Bridges In Alcúdia

Are there really 28 bridges over Alcúdia's waterways? Perhaps there are. I confess I have never bothered counting them, but I'll accept that the number is accurate just as I'll accept that it will cost 1.2 million euros to return them to a condition that might warrant their being called bridges. How long have we had to wait for movement on this? Far too long.

The bridges, as with the canals and the lakes, are not ultimately the responsibility of the town hall. The Costas Authority is responsible. This division of the national environment ministry, far away in Madrid, has appeared to wish to take absolutely no responsibility for the bridges. Until now. Why, though, it is really necessary to get Madrid actively involved is a good question. There is, after all, an entire delegation of the Costas knocking around the Balearics. What do they do with themselves?

Madrid it is, though, and so it was to Madrid that Coloma Terrasa went, accompanied by one of her mayoral predecessors, Miquel Ramis, in order to meet the sub-director for the Costas, Angel Muñoz. (It can't have been deemed that important if it was only the sub-director.)

But Sr. Muñoz will be getting the authority to cough up the 1.2 million euros for the 28 bridges, and work on them is scheduled to start after the coming tourism season. The work cannot be done during the season, said Coloma, as it would "cause inconvenience to tourists and residents". And she was right to say this of course, though why she said nothing to similar effect when work was going on at the new Viva hotel last summer one doesn't quite know.

The work to be done on the bridges will represent a "partial" renovation of the area: 30% of a total budget that is due to be spent on the whole pedestrian area around the lakes and canals. When the remaining 70% of the budget will be made available is not known. Nor is it known what it will actually be spent on. However, one can always refer to the town's touristic development plan 2014-2015 to get some clues. Under this plan, a recreational zone is supposedly going to be created by the big lake (Lago Esperanza) and new "touristic attractions" will be created "with the Lago Menor and canal spaces", whatever this means. There is also scope for the "revitalisation of the Avenida Pedro Mas y Reus zone".

It's an interesting document, this plan. The ideas for the Mile (Pedro Mas y Reus) include a plan for its modernisation: not of the infrastructure but of the businesses. Really: that is what it says. Which businesses do you suppose they have in mind? And how do you think they are proposing that this modernisation might be effected? Answer: there are no proposals. Just an idea.

Anyway, a revitalisation "action" for the Mile is the control of the "venta ambulante ilegal": that's looky-looky men and lady hair braiders to you and me. The control is such that it seems that many of the lookies have decided to get off the streets and make a damn nuisance of themselves around the pools in Bellevue. And, because there are few if any physical obstacles to prevent them from doing so, they can get access to holidaymakers with ease. Trip Advisor reviews note this activity: yet another black mark against Bellevue. Where are the security personnel to kick them off?

The Victory Of Ses Casetes Des Capellans

On a day in late October 2009 I wandered along the beach in Playa de Muro to the enclave of Ses Casetes des Capellans. It was a fine, sunny autumn day, late in the season. It was a Saturday, and Ses Casetes was full of people; the people who own the cottages in this strange part of Muro, the people who were preparing for a demonstration that would take them out of Ses Casetes and on to the main road into Can Picafort, as Ses Casetes lies right by the border between the municipalities of Muro and Santa Margalida.

Before they ventured out of their curious urbanisation, they staged a protest, posing for press and television. It was a protest against what they were in the process of losing. Their cottages. Their Ses Casetes, the summertime village by the sea for the folk of Muro who, for years, had owned these cottages which had been ceded to the town decades before by the church. The little houses of the chaplains.

There are protests and there are protests. Only some have total justification. This was one of those. The cottages, the whole area of Ses Casetes, were under threat of eventual demolition and the destructiveness of the bulldozer, and all because the Costas Authority had deemed that Ses Casetes was on public land that was part of the maritime domain.

Strictly speaking, the Costas may have been right to have classified the area in the way that it had, but the cottages - ses casetes - had been there for all those decades. It had been the church which had developed the site as a place for clergy to enjoy the seaside. There had been no demarcation of land, no consideration of what might have been land determined by the action of the sea; the development was long before such notions existed or were dreamt up and placed on statute books.

I got interested in and involved in the case of and campaign for Ses Casetes because I knew people who owned properties there. These are not grand properties by any means. They are simple, old cottages. Yes, there are some other properties of rather grander style, one or two which have invaded the forest track into what is part of the wider Albufera nature reserve. Their legality is and was an entirely separate issue. The legality of the original cottages was one solely to do with how the land had been re-classified, and the legal interpretation was unjust; totally unjust. 

What added to the sense of injustice was the fact that right next to Ses Casetes was the first of the hotels that sit along the seafront in Can Picafort, a resort whose frontline comprises hotel after hotel and which had all been built on land which could have been nothing other than of same the category that had caught Ses Casetes in the Costas' trap.

The threat to the cottages came about because of what had started the year before. Twenty years after the old Coasts Law had been enacted, the Costas Authority's delegation in the Balearics had finally got round to taking an interest in developments along the bay of Alcúdia. This interest turned to alarm. All manner of property was potentially liable to be classified as being on land that was "influenced by the sea". There was an arcane qualification for this influence, one which drew a distinction between naturally and artificially created and dried-out salt marsh. Property which was on natural salt land and which had been built before the 1988 act was liable to be deemed illegal but would be given a stay of execution before it might be demolished. In the meantime, owners would not have been able to sell it. Ses Casetes fell into this category.

Because the cottages were owned by ordinary folk, there was a sense in which they were being discriminated against. They could point to the hotels in Can Picafort and ask, "well, what about those?" Any thoughts that the Costas might have had about the Can Picafort hotels were not made public, but the authority had ruled that hotels in Playa de Muro contravened demarcation legislation. They, though, weren't about to be threatened with eventual demolition, only with loss of some of their facilities closer to the shoreline which breached the 100-metre rule.

With the recent reform of the Coasts Law came the hope that Ses Casetes might be spared its fate and eventual day of demolition destiny. Though there hasn't been a definitive statement, it seems that the Costas will change the classification once again, making Ses Casetes urban land.

The people of Ses Casetes will have won a victory, therefore, but it will be a victory for a fight that should never have taken place. As Martí Fornés, the mayor of Muro, points out, Ses Casetes had been an established urban development for decades. Of course it had been, and now common sense appears to have prevailed in accepting that it had been all along. I'm delighted for the people of Ses Casetes.

Lines In The Sand

The Mallorcans will protest about anything. Many a bed sheet has been sacrificed in the name of marker pens and "No" to this or "Sí" to that. Photographic coverage of these protests follows a very familiar formula. The man or woman with the conch (the loudspeaker) holds his bellowing pose while to either side of him are (usually) small numbers of other protesters, enough though to hold a bed sheet or two.

One is tempted to think that Mallorcan protests, go great are their number, are the product of pent-up protest prohibition in the good old days when protests were frowned upon. It's a long time now, though, since the bubbles of bottled-up protest suddenly popped out of cavas of circumscription. You would have thought they would have got it out of their system by now.

Minor, futile even, does many a Mallorcan protest appear to be. But then perhaps, it isn't so futile. Perhaps it is the only way that voices can be made to be heard, that discontent be displayed in a land where the accountability of officialdom meets the layers of public administration responsibility or irresponsibility in generating frustration. Or perhaps people just like protesting.

Everything is subject to protest. Take beaches and their environs, for example, and three cases in point. One was the protest by the Muro townspeople who have holiday homes in what are the old church cottages in the enclave of Ses Casetes des Capellans. It was one of the more poignant of the protests. The bed sheets carried messages about Capellans being "for the children", a place for them to play, a place that was threatened (still is in theory) by the zealots of the Costas Authority who wanted to demolish cottages that had been built by the church years before the Costas had ever been dreamt of.

Whereas this protest was a popular one in that it was a people's protest, a second protest, also in Playa de Muro, that organised by land and property owners. It was also against the demarcation gestapo of the Costas who, twenty years or so after the old coastal law had been drawn up, discovered that some property in the resort crossed the demarcation lines. This was a protest of a different order as it wasn't a popular one. It wasn't a people's protest but a protest by business against the government. When land and property owners comprise names such as Iberostar, Grupotel, Viva and others, then the protest is likely to gain a great deal more attention than that by humble townspeople in Capellans. And it did. The Costas didn't retreat with its tail completely between its legs but its destructive desire to reverse the destruction of three decades or more in the past has been watered down to the point where the demarcation line is little distance from the water's edge.

So the message is that protest is more likely to get somewhere if business can tell its staff to all get themselves out on to the streets and make a grand show that might put government to shame. Which is pretty much what happened with the hoteliers protest in Playa de Muro. The little people, like those of Capellans, can also get somewhere because they are ordinary people and because they have right firmly on their side. As well as the town hall, which backed them to the hilt, as it had backed the hoteliers as well.

But then there is the protest which doesn't get the town hall onside, when the town hall is the object of the protest, and when the protesters' motives have to be questionable. Which brings me to the third beach-based protest, one over the weekend in Puerto Alcúdia. It could count on all of fifty or sixty people. It garnered support from opposition politicians (both leftist and Mallorcan nationalist) but it was arranged by the youth group Arran. This is the organisation that has changed its name from the Maulets, the Catalanist, independentist radicals. Its protest was levelled at the blue asphalt that has been plastered over the beach path, and the message was all to do with the destruction of Mallorca, blah, blah, blah.

I don't disagree with the sentiment of the message as I think the path looks awful, but it looks awful mainly because of its colour. Yes it's a shame that the path cannot still be eroded old stones, but few people, even those who don't like the path, argue that the path didn't need making properly usable. Arran's protest presumably had nothing to do with the fact that the town hall is dominated by the Partido Popular and that it represented the opportunity (and was therefore opportunistic) to hijack a a local controversy and use it for political aims. Were there a genuinely "popular" protest against the path, then the town hall might be shamed, and so it should be for having allowed such a hideous colour to be used, but it was not. Arran should take note of the ordinary people of Capellans; they know how to protest and to gain popular sympathy.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - High court rules against double taxation for Puerto Pollensa terraces

The Balearics High Court has upheld a previous legal ruling and dismissed an appeal by Pollensa town hall in respect of a challenge raised by a restaurant owner on the Paseo Anglada Camarasa in Puerto Pollensa who objected to paying a tax to the town hall for occupying public space (for a terrace) when a tax had already been paid to the Costas Authority. 

Comment: This is an important decision by the court as it tackles the absurd situation that exists not only in Pollensa of businesses paying more than once for the same public space. It also highlights the confusion over which authority has dominion over what. There is a third body which comes into this equation, namely the Balearics Ports Authority, which, as an example, collects revenue from businesses on Alcúdia's Paseo Marítimo. A definitive ruling is needed to establish that there is one body and one alone that has the right to apply a tax, and the most sensible one would be the town halls, a possible problem with this being, as shown in Puerto Pollensa, that when it comes to maintenance of the frontlines, it is the Costas which have to act, meaning it would want tax revenue. Confused, it most definitely is.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa threatens not to pay Costas Authority

Pollensa town hall's spat with the Costas Authority gets worse, the town hall now threatening to withhold the tax of 220,000 euros it pays annually to the government because of a failure by the Costas to adequately maintain parts of the beach and coastal areas, notably Puerto Pollensa's pine walk, and because of an absence of any significant investment since the Ternelles beach was created in 1992. The mayor has also asked that the Costas set aside parts of the beaches to allow sandcastle building (this in response to the fine handed out to the sandcastle builder on Albercutx beach).

See more: Diario de Mallorca

Sandcastle Wars

At the start of last month, a storm caused pine trees to be uprooted along Puerto Pollensa's pine walk and Pollensa town hall to ask the Costas Authority to pay rather greater attention to the pine walk than it had been. An aspect of local government in Mallorca that some may be unaware of is that land which is in the proximity of beaches and sea (and some land which isn't right next to the coast) is ultimately the responsibility of the Costas, i.e. the Balearics division of the Costas, itself a part of the national environment ministry and so therefore part of the national government. The town halls work in co-operation (usually) with the Costas in managing this land as well as the beaches themselves, but it is the Costas which have the final say.

Whether the Costas have taken any notice of the request for better maintenance of the pine walk I don't know, but they have addressed a matter in Puerto Pollensa that is obviously far more urgent. In a manner to which many have become accustomed in understanding how the Costas operate, they have marched in with their heavy boots and, metaphorically if not physically, trampled all over the elaborate sandcastles that are built on a tiny part of beach near to the quay which leads to the yacht club. They have fined the bloke who builds the sandcastles. Fined him just over two grand.

The justifications for the fine are that the chap has no permission to build the castles and that they occupy public space, thus denying other beach users the use of this space which is, in any event, the property of the state. The Costas also suggest that the sandcastle man has benefited financially. The fine is said to equate to what the Costas believe he has received. The sandcastle man says he has not received a single euro.

Whether he has received money from admiring tourists or whether he hasn't, the Costas action is heavy-handed to say the least. Though the sandcastles endure through the summer, they are not, by their very nature, permanent structures. They are in fact quite marvellous pieces of art and skill that have become something of an attraction in their own right. They do not deny beachgoers the use of beach because there is plenty more beach to go around. The fine is an utter nonsense.

In British newspaper cliché style, the Costas action is an example of "the world going mad", a cliché I would normally avoid like the plague, but in this instance it is probably appropriate. It is jobsworthyism of the highest order. Pollensa town hall, for its part, says there is nothing to stop the building of sandcastles and that, in any event, their building is not included among those activities that the Costas demand the town hall to rubber-stamp (like, for instance, contracts for managing the beaches, a subject about which we are only too familiar). All one can say is thank Heavens there isn't a procedure which requires permission to build sandcastles; the whole matter is totally ridiculous.

There is, however, a further aspect to all this. One that has not, as far as I am aware, become a factor in Puerto Pollensa sandcastle building, but which is elsewhere on the island and is one that would also be of interest to the Costas but which is of even greater interest to police forces.

Over the summers of 2010 and 2011, a sandcastle war developed on Playa de Palma. It was one that elements of the local Spanish media delighted in reporting, as they could wheel out the M-word (mafia) and state that the war was all the work of Romanians, and Romanian "mafias" specifically. (The local press appears to take special pleasure in being able to single out certain foreign nationalities.)

The war involved extortion, as sandcastle builders were clearly receiving a financial benefit and a pretty reasonable one at that. It also involved the destruction of rival sandcastles and the castles being the centre for other activities, for example the sale of drugs. The problem got so bad last year that Palma town hall instructed the beach operator to level castles when it was cleaning beaches each evening. The operator had to have police accompaniment. Even this didn't do the trick, as the castles would be re-built.

The story of Playa de Palma's sandcastle war serves as a warning. Not because of what the Costas might seek to extract as a fine (which is an absurdity) but because of how sandcastle building, an innocent activity one would think, can turn into something that is rather more sinister.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Costas fine the Puerto Pollensa sandcastle builder

Well, is this absurd or is it the rightful application of the law? The chap who builds the large and complex sandcastles on the Albercutx beach in Puerto Pollensa is to be fined over 2,000 euros by the Costas authority, the reason being that the sandcastle infringes rules on the occupying of public space on a beach.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

Built On Sand: Spain's reformed coasts law

While the Spanish Government's measures to tackle the economy's status - now officially deemed to be Basket Case by all leading ratings agencies - have naturally grabbed the headlines, the government is up to something else that is likely to have far more profound and long-lasting an impact than the savage but hopefully more short-term adjustments to tax, unemployment benefit and the rest.

Almost unnoticed, and it helps that there have been the new round of austerity measures to bury the news, is the passage of the draft new Coasts Law. Reform of this law, and it has been on the statute book since 1988, had been widely anticipated. Some of the changes in the draft are to be welcomed, e.g. they should go some way to allay fears or address issues regarding properties on coastal land that were bought in good faith but which turned out to be illegal, but others are unlikely to be welcome. One can already hear the revs of the environmentalists' solar-powered battle bus as it gets itself into gear in order to object in the strongest possible terms.

The 1988 act was brought in with one overarching aim, which was to set a time limit on righting the wrongs of coastal development. In theory 30 years, but in practice 60, the law envisaged coastal areas returning to something like their natural state thanks to the elimination of some buildings (by the end of the time limit) and the prevention of more. The 30-year limit, which would expire in 2018, was the base period for which owners of property illegally constructed on what was deemed public land. In most cases, it has been or would have been extended to 60 years. 

The law has, however, not been applied with total practicality, with total fairness or with total consistency. Indeed, in certain instances, it took until relatively recently for it to even be invoked. This was the case in Mallorca three years ago when the Costas Authority (part of the national environment ministry) was going around establishing new demarcations of land, based on the authority of the 1988 act. This, the sheer inertia that has accompanied the act, has been but one problem with it. There have been many others, far too many to mention, but fundamentally, the act did not stop further coastal developments, as those owners who have either experienced demolition or been threatened with it will know to their cost.

What the act couldn't prevent was corrupt behaviour, both that of constructors and of local authorities, to say nothing of some legal and real-estate "professionals". But the act also created something of a monster, and that was - and still is - the Costas Authority. As much as anything else, it has been interpretations and definitions made by the authority, together with a zeal bordering on the fanatical, that have brought the law into some disrepute. An example was the sudden appearance, three years ago, of the Costas in Alcúdia and Playa de Muro and their insistence that all manner of properties or constructions of some description did or could contravene the principle of being influenced by the sea. This principle is one which determines, or can do, if land is in the public domain.

Quite clearly, there has been an awful lot of construction since 1988 that would fall foul of the law, whether it is because the land is public domain or whether it breaches other usually held principles of buildings having to be more than 100 metres from the shoreline and of guaranteeing public access to beaches. In practice, the law was often ignored, and ignored not necessarily through ignorance but quite deliberately. The reform of the Coasts Law, badly needed, in effect will grant an amnesty (it doesn't say this, but this is pretty much what it will amount to). Owners will now be able to sell properties, which they can't at present, and the time limit is to be extended to 75 years. In so extending this limit, the government is basically abandoning the fundamental principle of the 1988 act. It is fudging the whole issue, and by 2063, the coasts of Mallorca and of other parts of Spain will probably have taken on a different appearance in any event, courtesy of the impact of climate change, erosion and rising sea levels.

The environmentalists fear a new free-for-all in coastal construction. They may be right to be fearful, but only up to a point. There is to be a distinction between "natural" beaches and coastlines and "urban" ones. There will be greater flexibility to build on the latter, but this in itself introduces another potential for different interpretation.

The government argues that the new law has to be more open to the demands of tourism, hence, for example, current limits on the size of beach bars being raised significantly. The government has a point, but there again one criticism of Mallorca from tourists has been the over-construction that has already occurred. Whether it is right to be more liberal or not, one thing is for sure, and that is that the Costas Authority will not be as zealous as it previously has been. And this will be no bad thing.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Guarding Lives - Or Not

The exceptionally warm weather for early May has led to the beaches being busier than might normally be the case. But not all beaches are as busy as they might be, because there is an absence of personnel one would hope would be there. We are, I'm afraid, back once again to Pollensa's beaches.

It is simply no good the town hall trotting out one of its annual excuses as to the tardiness with which beach management is finalised, the excuse of gaining clearance by the Costas. The town hall has no credibility in this regard, not, that is, when other town halls in the area can manage to commence arrangements for beach management in time for the official 1 May start of the tourism season (or earlier in some instances).

Personally, I couldn't care less whether there were sunbeds and umbrellas, but then I am far from being everyone. They form a service that is expected, and one that is expected to operate throughout the season and not once the town hall finally gets its backside into gear.

It isn't just the beds and parasols, though. There are also the lifeguards. On Pollensa town hall's website, the announcement of the tender for beach safety had allowed for submission up to 7 May, a week after the season started. The website also announced that this was "urgent". I'd say it was urgent.

The fiasco with Pollensa's beach management is such that the town's mayor should have the courtesy to issue a clear explanation as to why Pollensa is so lethargic when other towns are not. This should not be an explanation made in a town hall meeting, but in wider communication with the public, the whole of the public, including the town's many foreign residents and tourists.

Unfortunately, the town hall doesn't go in for this sort of communication. Very few town halls in Majorca do. Their press and public relations are poor to the point of being negligible. And then they wonder why dissatisfaction grows.

To return to the issue of the lifeguards, there is a further PR dimension to this, i.e. the fact that there was a spate of drownings last summer in Muro, Can Picafort and Pollensa. These were not attributable to inaction by lifeguards or emergency services, as they were as a consequence of cardiac arrest being suffered by mainly elderly swimmers. But any drowning isn't good for business, and if lifeguards are not to be found, then it's worse for business.

At least Pollensa appears to be allowing for the possibility of contracts running for three years when it comes to beach management, which will be something, but not for the safety service, which will still be renewable annually. Why? Who knows? It will probably be because of the Costas Authority; but then it always is.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Coasting Along To A New Coasts Law

You may have noticed that coasts and beaches have been washing over the news a fair bit recently. The Balearics tourism ministry, totally broke, is unable to send its little boats out to clean up the seas immediately next to the shores, while at the same time it has been putting the final touches to its new law, an aspect of which is likely to be greater exploitation - by the private sector - of Mallorca's beaches.

Amidst this news, one body has been conspicuous by its silence: the Costas Authority. This arm of national government, and specifically of the environment ministry, pretty much has the final say on anything that moves or doesn't move either on or off shores. But, as an example, it has seemingly been stunned into silence by suggestions such as that which will see hotels developing business on beaches.

Why the silence? Good question. The answer, or an answer, may have something to do with the fact that the Coasts Law is up for some reform, and it could be some pretty serious reform. The working of government and of government departments doesn't normally get put on hold while legislative reform makes its slow and tortuous progress through parliament (and most legislative reform in Spain does make slow and tortuous progress). But where the Costas is concerned, anything other than its usual bureaucratic procedures, i.e. its zealous searching for some pronouncement on coastal demarcation, appears to have been stilled by the anticipation of reform.

The national environment ministry has signalled its intention to introduce a new Coasts Law, but it hasn't signalled what this might entail. Environmental groups, though, sense a relaxation of rules governing the coasts and are getting their retaliation in early; there is no need for a new law, or so they say.

It doesn't really do to speculate, but this hasn't stopped the likes of GOB, the Great (environmental) Observers of the Balearics, which isn't of course what GOB stands for but could do, worrying that a law change will bring about economic development of the coasts and beaches, which is a pretty obvious conclusion, given that this is about to happen in the Balearics even without a change to the law.

Much though I have been critical of the Costas, largely because its actions at times seem arbitrary or even callous (as with the threatened demolition of the cottages of Ses Casetes des Capellans in Playa de Muro) as well as extreme, e.g. through the interpretation of land that has been influenced by the sea (which is most land in coastal areas, if you want to be strictly accurate), a strong governmental body with strong laws overseeing the coasts is now needed more than ever.

The threats to beaches and coastal areas are well-known. The overdevelopment of Mallorca's coastline has been referred to by many organisations, and not just environmental watchdogs such as Greenpeace. Coastal erosion is a fact, the environmental problems caused by shipping are a fact and climate change is also a fact (though some of course would choose to say otherwise). It is understandable that, at a time when the coasts are more vulnerable than ever, the pressure groups should be alarmed by possible relaxations. Indeed, it isn't just the environmental groups who should be alarmed; it is everyone.

Economics are, however, likely to dictate. As are politics. Plans such as those for hotels to stage beach parties, to create additional moorings or to exploit the beaches and coasts in other ways (all by the private sector, as with the redevelopment in Magalluf) take little or no account of what the Costas might have to say. But change the complexion of the Costas, change the law, and a different situation obtains. The national government, as with the regional government in the Balearics, knows it needs the private sector onside, and the private sector doesn't need the Costas getting in the way; now or later.

Changes to the law are one thing, but what of the Costas' role? Government could help everyone out by a demarcation of a type different to that which the Costas is involved, that of land: a demarcation of who does what. Why, for example, is the Balearics tourism ministry even involved with cleaning the immediate coast line? What's it got to do with them? It should be the Costas. Why do the Costas get involved with taxing frontline businesses when town halls are involved in the same process?

The government should proceed with caution and not play fast and loose with the coasts, but it should also tidy up responsibilities, as they, rather like what the tourism ministry is not able to clean up, are a mess.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Hotels' Beachhead

Change of government is still a month away, but the tourism industry has gone into overdrive in anticipation of all sorts of liberalisation that may be ushered forth by a Partido Popular victory.

As far as the hoteliers are concerned, Mariano Rajoy may as well already be prime minister. The Meliá plans for Magalluf are partly dependent on legislative relaxation, and the specific plans Meliá has for the beach would almost certainly require some changes to the Coasts Law.

When it was announced that Meliá wished to "exploit" the beach, a thought which occurred had to do with what the Costas Authority would make of it. This is a body which, while it does, quite rightly, seek to protect the coastal environment, is also the source of obstruction and of much that runs counter to the wishes of the tourism industry.

If a likely change of government were not in the offing, the chances are that Meliá's wishes would have been stamped on from the great height that the Costas has come to assume; or probably, the wishes would never have been made public. Without knowing for sure, one gets the sense that the Costas might find its seemingly all-embracing powers being cut back.

Meliá wants, among other things, to be able to provide temporary moorings next to its hotels. The Mallorca hoteliers federation, very much to the fore in driving a national agenda, wants a change to the Coasts Law which would not only remove any obstacle to Meliá providing its moorings but would also permit other hotels to exploit other beaches for leisure purposes.

The proposal, much as it may make good business sense for the hotels and for the tourism industry, does run up against a difficulty. Essentially, the beaches would be privatised and there has to be a risk, somewhere along the line, that the principle of free public space on the beaches might be endangered.

Where the Costas has been doing a good job is in ensuring this free space. Together with town halls, it has also kept the sea itself free. And by free, one means open and accessible. It is the open to access principle that comes into question if the hotels have their way. With Meliá's moorings, where would they go exactly? Would they in some way impede public use of the sea?

A further factor in the hotels' ambitions for beach exploitation is the Costas' bureaucracy. An aspect of this does badly need to be changed, and it is that which relates to the annual rigmarole that is gone through to establish provisions for beach management and for licensing operations.

The annual bureaucratic procedures have the effect of inhibiting investment. If a beach operator cannot be sure of running a beach from year to year then it is understandably reluctant to commit itself too heavily. Meliá wouldn't, one would imagine, put up with such uncertainty.

If there were to be a relaxation of this bureaucratic burden, it could only be a good thing. It would prevent, one would hope, the kind of delays that have bedevilled beach management operations in Puerto Pollensa, and it might also be hoped that further relaxations would get rid of the nonsensical situation whereby an operator such as Sail and Surf in Puerto Pollensa cannot put out buoys for larger craft out of high season, so restricting its ability to extend the resort's tourism season.

This constraint is another of the Costas' domains, just one that has consistently placed it at loggerheads with business and especially the hotels. In Mallorca, there is an added dimension. The local head of the Costas is Celesti Alomar, the former (socialist) tourism minister who was responsible for the despised eco-tax that the hotels were charged with collecting and which, in some cases, they never handed over.

The Costas locally has brushed up against some heavy hitters, not least in Muro where its interpretation of coastal demarcation and the almost unworkable notion of land that is "influenced by the sea" have threatened hotels' interests. To put it mildly, there is no love lost when it comes to the hotels' attitude towards the Costas.

So now the hotels can sense the opportunity to get the law changed and also bring the Costas down a peg or two. As a protecter, it does a valuable job, but its role as enforcer has created too many enemies. If the law does change and if the Costas finds itself with a diminished role, this may be no bad thing. But would things go too far in the other direction? The privatisation of the beaches and of the water.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa worst for coastal irregularities

The Costas Authority took action in 2010 against 356 various breaches of coastal regulations in the Balearics. These related to illegal building, businesses which had exceeded areas which they were permitted to develop, and illegal moorings. It is the latter of these which help explain why Pollensa was the worst-offending municipality in Mallorca. A campaign against such moorings (generally speaking, boats anchored where they shouldn't have been and without permission) was mounted last summer in Puerto Pollensa and elsewhere in Mallorca.

On The Dunes: Can Picafort and Playa de Muro

I am looking at some old photos of Can Picafort. Circa 1960. Two people are walking along what is recognisable as a road but which has no tarmac. It is made of sand. It became the Via Suiza. In the distance you can't make out the sea. Not because of buildings, because there aren't any, but because of something else that is obscuring the view. In another photo there is a boy sitting on a deckchair on the beach. You might expect to be able to see, in the background, the Via Suiza from a different angle. But you can't. Because there is something in the way. Dunes.

Can Picafort, in keeping with much of the bay of Alcúdia and with other stretches of Mallorcan coastline, is made up of dunes. Or rather, it used to be. The only dunes now are at the resort's eastern Son Bauló end, extending into what is the "rustic" coast past the Son Real finca. The dunes in Can Picafort can no longer be seen. Because they are no longer there.

The loss of the dunes along the bay is evident in Alcúdia. But here the beach is wide. Nothing sits on top of the sea. Nor does it in much of adjoining Playa de Muro. Only once past the canal that connects Albufera with the sea does the beach start to become appreciably narrower. This is what has now been lovingly signposted as "Sector 2". The resort as military installation.

Where the hotels in Playa de Muro finish there is a stretch of some two kilometres of rustic beach, backed by dunes and forest. There are no buildings. They only re-emerge as you come into Can Picafort. The dunes end abruptly. Can Picafort is built on dunes.

The creation of the resort was not so much environmental vandalism as environmental rape and pillage. The dunes were levelled and what was formed was a generally charmless front line of barn-style restaurants only a short distance from the shoreline. The restaurants, for the most part, are unremarkable. And there is probably a good reason. Being so close to the sea and being so undefended, in winter sand and water encroach. Until recently, before some new drainage, there used to be regular and damaging floods. Why create something of beauty if it's going to be ravaged by nature.

Behind the front line is a town. Shops and hotel after hotel. The dunes and what lay behind them were destroyed in constructing an urban development.

One of the points of contention surrounding the Costas demarcation plan for Playa de Muro is Can Picafort. With no small amount of justification, the murers point to what happened to what was once hardly even a village, just a bit of a fishing harbour and the old fincas of Sr. Picafort. In Playa de Muro, where the environmental destruction has been less extreme, it might just be that the destruction is reversible. In Can Picafort, it can't be reversed. But the targeting of Playa de Muro by the Costas strikes many as supremely unfair when compared with the wholesale degradation of the natural environment just a few kilometres away.

The language and the actions of the Costas in Playa de Muro have been ratcheted up since the demonstration against the demarcation took place. Celestí Alomar, the boss of the Costas in the Balearics, talks of there being "many people and organisations without any sort of consideration". He has taken particular exception to the fact that gardens have been created and that volleyball is played on the dunes. But note the words. On the dunes. They are still there. They may be subject to what Alomar calls "degradation", but they haven't all been taken away. Unlike in Can Picafort.

Meanwhile, Alomar has been suggesting that the holiday homes of Ses Casetes des Capellans could have a reprieve by their being ceded to Muro town hall and escaping any threat of demolition. Good news perhaps, and aimed at the ordinary people of Muro who own the bungalows. But it smacks of politicking, driving a wedge between the holiday-home owners and the businesses and residents of the resort.

Alomar wants an improvement to the beach in Playa de Muro, one that will create "tourism of more quality" and one that, with greater respect for nature, will offset the seasonality that local hoteliers bemoan. Who is he trying to kid? The nature is now just something to admire from a distance. The Costas has made and is making the dunes no-go areas in Playa de Muro. There may be sound environmental reasons for doing so, but what they are becoming are things to just look at. You can no longer wander in the forest and dunes areas in the way you used to be able to. Yet isn't this public land? Isn't there meant to be public access? It's contradictory, just as much as a short walk along the beach from where dunes do still exist confirms that there is a place where they no longer do.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Wacky Races: The Alcúdia-Puerto Pollensa coast road

The Wacky Department's at it again. It seems to be the only department in the Spanish Government that's expanding during the "cree-sis". What it has now dragged out, courtesy of the dreaded Costas and their "demarcation", is a revival of an old tune - the elimination of the coast road between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa. This was something that had gone ominously quiet since being given plenty of airplay a couple of years ago (for example, 9 May 2008, Road To Nowhere). But it's back on the playlist - and racing up the charts.

The idea that the coast road should be removed and nature allowed to reclaim the coastal area is one that goes back some years, but it has never really attracted serious attention. This is about to change. The Costas, as reported in "The Diario" yesterday, are embarking on two studies - one into the socioeconomic implications of getting rid of the road, the other a technical proposal for doing so.

The environmental context for the road's elimination is clear: the road runs right by a line of coast that is "rustic", i.e. not made up, and by the Albufereta wetlands and finca of Can Cullerassa, itself recently cleaned up after years of neglect following the abandonment of a building project that dated back to the seventies. The non-environmental ramifications of eliminating the road are also obvious - Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa would in effect, unless there were an alternative road, be cut off from each other. And quite what the owners of the Club Pollentia Resort, the Club Sol Apartments, the Can Cuarassa restaurant and various fincas make of the idea, God alone knows.

Pollensa's mayor Joan Cerdà, for his part, has expressed his scepticism regarding the plan and is also concerned as to what an alternative road might mean for finca owners and for the virgin land that exists beyond the Albufereta. Any new road, and there would surely have to be one, would have to cut across this land while probably also having to have feeder roads. Solving one environmental problem would merely create a different one, to which would be added the costs of expropriation and the inevitable legal challenges.

What needs to be established, above all else, is whether the continued existence of the current road represents genuine potential for long-term environmental harm. If not, then one would have to conclude, and not for the first time with the Costas' diktats on demarcation, that the road's elimination would be an example of over-zealous application of that demarcation. The project demands an independent enquiry, not one under the auspices of the Costas.

There are other issues to be taken into account. The current road can be dangerous and also a nightmare when the weather is bad and stones are being hurled onto it. It might be no bad thing if there were an alternative road, but the existing road is also important for tourism, a point that Mayor Cerdà has made.

The logic of the Costas' position would, one might think, place the continued existence of the hotels and the restaurant in peril. Leave them, but without the coast road and with a new one to their rear, and that logic would be undermined; they are as much a part of the environmental issue along the coast road as the road itself.

But there may also be another factor, one lurking in the background, and that is the European Union. The recuperation of Can Cullerassa was part of what the EU had determined to be a priority in terms of environmental regeneration.

While common sense would suggest that Cerdà is right to be sceptical as to whether the project will happen, there are sufficient forces potentially lining up that might just make it happen.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Gonna Tear Your Playero Down

Well, they went ahead and did it, as they said they would once the season had ended. The Playero Club, aka Boccaccio Snack Bar, in Puerto Alcúdia has been duly bulldozed into oblivion. This was a story highlighted back in June (16 June: Demolition Man); the Playero was to be one of three "chiringuitos" to not escape the demolition men of the Costas authority. All that remains are two kiosks, and maybe they'll be torn down as well.

It's all rather sad, and the impression given by the bulldozing is almost one of vandalism; they managed to knock down a litter bin in the process. Why have they done it? For an answer, you have to go back to the law on demarcation and also actual permissions, but the difficulty is knowing what is what. Strictly speaking, there is not meant to be any building within 100 metres of the shoreline, unless it is on so-called urban land. The Playero was along a line of buildings, apartments mainly, roughly 50 metres from the sea. Perhaps there was just never any permission for it to be there, but there are any number of buildings and additions to buildings that have never received permission. As mentioned previously, it was not actually on the beach, indeed it was behind the pavement (urban land?) that runs at the back of the beach, whereas some of the chiringuitos or balnearios - call them what you will, they are all, to Brits, beach bars - are on the sand and are also permanent buildings. Beach, sand, it is not urban land.

The confusion as to what should or should not be allowed to stay has been heightened by different "plans" and bits of legislation which appear to contradict others, and there is now this business of what are natural or artificial salt deposits ("salinas") which exist right along Alcúdia bay. It is this, as much as the 100 metres rule, that draws into question the strict legality of many buildings and the determination as to whether they occupy urban or public land or land influenced by the sea (the controversy over Ses Casetes des Capellans in Playa de Muro is an example of all of this). The Costas authority is not completely mad though. It accepts that many buildings that might actually be on naturally created salt lands are, in its words, "productive" (which can be interpreted many ways one supposes), and the hundred or so chiringuitos that were under threat have been spared (save for the Playero and a couple in the south). But what good does knocking down the Playero actually do? None, as far as anyone can make out.

* Thanks to Ben for drawing to my attention that the Playero had gone. I knew it was planned but didn't know when.


Real Mallorca - the nonsense continues
"The Diario" ran a splendid piece yesterday. It concerned two Catalan businessmen in their thirties who apparently specialise in the acquisition of insolvent businesses. They have asked to see the books, but why they would be interested in Real Mallorca is far from clear, though some associated with the club seem to know the answer. Publicity. All they want is to have their photos taken and to get their names bandied about. Moreover, they are "two unknown youths (or young men)". The word "joven" covers a wide age range. These are two thirtysomethings, but a "joven" could just as easily be a teenager.

The implication is that there are likely to be prospective buyers who may be anything but. Their interest will be in gaining publicity, as is being said in this instance. And Real Mallorca has had its fill of questionable suitors and indeed failed purchasers over the past year or so. The club has been made to look ridiculous, and interim owner Alemany has vowed not to make the same mistakes that let in the disgraced Martí Mingarros.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Fine song, and one of the ladies looks as though she's wearing a transparent mac - very odd. God, things were so cheesy back then. The Fifth Dimension, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWVe3AB8OY8. Today's title - it was not a playero but a playhouse - who?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)

Killing Them Softly

Further to yesterday. There is some disquiet that there was not a cohesive message coming from the various political parties in Muro against the Costas demolition plan. Only the Unió Mallorquina got involved, something for which it was criticised as it appeared to make Ses Casetes the party's own issue. Maybe that's why others stayed away. Something else that came out was that, while Ses Casetes is threatened by the definition as to what is public domain or land, a hotel next to the area is excluded. One presumes that this means the Hotel Platja Daurada, a hotel operated by the EIX group, which so happens to have its offices next to the hotel.

Even if this not the right hotel - and there is no other hotel that joins onto Ses Casetes - it is hard not to get the impression that maybe Ses Casetes is something of a soft target. For the very reasons that it is not a hotel and is not an urbanisation of expensive real estate or of the fabulously wealthy, perhaps it is a convenient fall-guy in the Costas wish to do some cleaning up of public land along the shorelines of Mallorca. Killing the small houses softly.

Yet for all this, if one takes a stroll around Ses Casetes, and the photo from yesterday does give an impression of the place - unmade tracks as roads for instance - then one does wonder as to the legitimacy of the development. It does seem hugely anachronistic, which is of course part of the charm. That it has not been developed in terms, say, of roads, does not mean that it does not have legitimacy, but there is also something that is not quite right there. The original or oldest small houses around the parking area and just off are one thing, but some tracks go into the forest, and next to some tracks are houses that are not like the small houses. They are in fact new; certainly by comparison.

The land itself was ceded to the town many years ago. A question may well be what that land actually was. Some of the buildings would certainly appear to be in possible conflict with what is meant to be the wider nature park of Albufera.

Whatever the real legal situation, the people of Ses Casetes deserve support. One thing that came across vividly during the demonstration was the strength of the community that is Ses Casetes, of the vast age ranges that tell of the history of ownership and of the generations who have summered (and also wintered at holiday times) in the small houses. It is definitely a place worth preserving.


Some hours after the Muro demo, there was the other one - in Sa Pobla. This was a gathering of "demons" in a defiant act of fire-running against the European directive that would limit the participation of children and general interactivity during fire-runs at Mallorcan fiestas. 3,000 people are estimated to have attended. Further to what I said on 23 October ("Feel The Fire") when I wondered about the safety of fire-runs and of bonfires, I was told by Kevin at JKs about how the Santander bank in Puerto Pollensa nearly once copped for it, while John MacLean has sent an email specifically about fires in Sa Pobla during Sant Antoni. I quote: "We were absolutely gobsmacked to see a roaring fire, surrounded by the usual crowd of partygoers, slap bang on the forecourt of the Repsol filling station". (Yep, that's right, filling station as in petrol station.) "It could not have been more than ten feet from the pumps. At that point, I realised that the Mallorcans and the 'poblers' (as the folk of Sa Pobla are called) are not only a different breed but totally off their heads. Needless to say, we didn't hang about!"

And they're complaining about a bit of European health and safety that might stop kids setting fire to themselves during fire-runs. Tradition is one thing, but madness is another.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Simple Minds, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRpEeiZ8vqk. Today's title - variant on what?

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Don't Take It Away - This Is Your Land

And the people of the little houses made their way to the little plaza in front of the Pedrissos bar. The man with the conch had blown his loudhailer trumpet. Everyone had searched in the bottom of wardrobes for a dispensable sheet and had blackened it with a slogan. Those without sheets had stuck brown wrapping paper together and had used biros. Two hundred or so formed a semi-circle and had their photos taken. One chap with long dreadlocks tied into a ponytail had the biggest photographic kit of all. Local TV smoked and waited for their interview. Small children, an afternoon spent with cardboard, sticks and marker pens, were thrust into the circle. One had her sign reversed, revealing a patchwork of different coloured tape. Someone helpfully turned it the right way. The conch was handed to a man with a grey goatie who started a song no-one seemed to know. There was some applause and he tried again with a bit more success, but maybe the people were shy when it came to singing for the telly. The local police, half-a-dozen strong, stood about and grinned. One came forward and took some photos with a small digital camera. Perhaps it was a requirement - evidence of the demonstrators - or maybe they were of his family. There was one of the girls from the Eroski near to Playa de Muro. Her family has a "caseta" and has had it for years. It's a place where children can play freely, as she used to, this Ses Casetes des Capellans. It's a place that's very Mallorcan, very Muro. One felt like an intruder into an essentially Muro occasion. Barely a word of Castilian was being uttered, just the chatter and chirrup of the Mallorcan char-char sound, but without any sense of choler - no anger as such, it was a pleasant afternoon in late season, the sun was out and warm, and the "cassettes", if one might call them that, took a stroll from their casetes and were taped for posterity and for transmission on the evening's news.

The signs said what the people thought. "We don't understand the Costas' criteria"; "We want to conserve Capellans as it is"; "Capellans is our Capellans, it is for the people of Muro and for everyone". Rather more politically, one read: "A golf course is for the rich. Capellans is worth much more". The latter sign was a reference to the permission granted to build the golf course on the nearby Son Bosc finca. Casetes is for the ordinary people, their summer homes of white-washed walls, their bungalows with green or red trimmings and brightly-coloured gates. And it is these curious and humble little houses that the Costas authority would like to see demolished. It may take years for that to happen, if happen it ever does. But the people of Ses Casetes have expressed their views. There is traditional Mallorca and there is traditional beach and summer Mallorca, not the beach and summer of the hotels and the resorts, but of holiday for the local people as it once was, and still is - for the children of the Murers and the owners of the Casetes. One boy's sign said that Capellans is "like a playground for the boys and girls, please don't take it away". This is their land. Please don't take it away. It brought a tear to the eye.

* This is a follow-up to the piece of 21 October.


QUIZ
Today's title - the second part; great, really great.

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Little Boxes Made Of Ticky Tacky

Not for the first time, the odd little area of Ses Casetes des Capellans in Playa de Muro has aroused some passions. It has, in the recent past, been the site of an outcry over the raising of a flag with Francoist associations on one of the small houses. There has also been concern as to the fact that the sand area, around which many of the cottages are arranged, has been a free parking space for those destined for the beach. Indeed, the regional government's own tourism website has advised that it be used for parking. Muro council has now decreed that only residents of the town, with a permit, can use the parking area.

To remind you, Ses Casetes sits at the border between Playa de Muro and Can Picafort. The houses not only encircle the parking area but also make their way into the forest that, itself, is part of the wider nature park of Albufera. As such, all the residences occupy dune or formerly dune land, which can also - almost certainly - be classified as "salinas", dried salt lands. Those of you with sharp memories may realise where this is all leading. Yep, it's them again - the Costas authority, the one that oversees and determines what is rightfully or wrongfully built in the general area of the sea. (This is, by the way, something of a follow-up to a piece from 5 May: Mean Streets.)

Ses Casetes has history. It was originally designated as a holiday retreat for clerics (strictly speaking, I guess, chaplains, which would be the closest translation of "capellans"). That the houses may have passed into private hands as holiday homes is not the issue. What is, is that they contravene what the Costas has established to be land in the public domain. Ses Casetes could be bulldozered.

The Unió Mallorquina (UM) party at the town hall is leading the fight against the Costas' stance. And it is a fight, in its own words, "for the peculiarity" of Ses Casetes. Nicely put. It is this, the very peculiarity of the area, that makes it something worthy of preservation. The socialists at the Mallorca Council have now weighed in as well, arguing that Ses Casetes is not only unique to Mallorca, it is unique to Spain, too. Perhaps it is, though this may be overstating its significance. As such, it has little merit in terms of architecture, but that very peculiarity should be sufficient to have a heritage site protection stamped onto it.

What has riled many is the fact that the Costas have given only a month for representations to be made against the "demarcation" order, officially announced on 8 October, and that the authority has planned a meeting with residents for 30 November, i.e. some three weeks after the process of representation has finished. As a minimum, the UM is pressing for a month's extension. Meanwhile, there is to be a protest this coming Saturday.

Even were the Costas to reject the opposition, Ses Casetes would not suddenly disappear. Indeed, the rulings on demarcation allow for a maximum stay of execution, so to speak, for up to 60 years. You might ask, therefore, what the fuss is all about. Apart from anything else, the owners cannot, were they inclined to, sell their properties. But the most important aspect is that oddness. Mallorca should cherish its curios and not have them demolished, even if the prospect is some way in the future. The Costas often appear to act in a heavy-handed manner. In the case of the "casetes", it is heavy-handed and short-sighted.


Tiki Taka
A few days ago, Andrés Montes, the Spanish football commentator, died. Some of you may recall him being the object of my ribbing during the 2006 World Cup. He was one of the Three Tenors, as helpfully dubbed by correspondent Alastair I think, the threesome of commentators (which also included Julio Salinas) who would burst into song during a match. Montes it was who coined "tiki taka" to describe the short passing game of the Spanish team, and which he would frequently drop into his commentaries. He was infuriating, but he was certainly different.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Natasha Bedingfield, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x7C8sld6AA. Today's title - little boxes were houses, and this was?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)