It has occurred to me that it is somewhat ironic that the Council of Mallorca can insist on "rescuing" the Sóller Tunnel (at a cost of fifteen million euros, if it's lucky) while at the same time it can sanction an event like Mallorca 312 and also be marching forward in wishing to limit traffic in parts of the island.
The "rescue" - it is always referred to as "rescate", albeit this could also mean recovery - is on behalf of the citizens, and not only those in Sóller. The citizens and their cars will be rescued from having to pay a toll that doesn't apply anywhere else and will thus be able to use all roads in Mallorca in a free and unfettered fashion. In the process, if some anxieties are confirmed, the elimination of the toll will mean that Sóller will "collapse" because of the volume of cars.
While the Council doesn't itself appear to be unduly alarmed at the prospect of Sóller collapsing, it shares concerns about collapse elsewhere. Which will be why it enabled 312 to go ahead and generate collapse - in the form of being cut-off - for several hours in places like Deià. Still, only for one day as they say: until the next time.
Fortunately, it doesn't appear that anyone in Deià was needing to be rescued while the roads were closed. Just as well really, as the fire service (Council-run) would have sent its tenders roaring along the narrow roads and eliminated good numbers of 312 participants.
Meanwhile, the other great controversy of the moment (apart from various other ones, such as the Més contracts, holiday rentals and what have you) has risen to the top of the debating agenda. Yes, it's those roads again, and specifically the ones for accessing quiet, unspoiled coves or promontories with fine views. It may not be the Council doing the closing, but denying access to non-residents in a part of Santanyi sounds very much like a reverse principle of the tunnel's rescue. The citizens will not be able to use all roads in a free and unfettered fashion, because the town hall won't let them.
If the citizens wish to get to the coves - s'Almonia and Moro - they will instead, once they get the bus operating, have to park in Santanyi's industrial estate and then pay for the shuttle. Then pay for the return trip. Hmm, it almost sounds like they'll be having to pay a toll, just as they may well have to in order to access other parts of the island in the future in addition to Es Trenc, for which they already have to pay.
While the situation with the shuttle buses in Santanyi seems to have caused little institutional fuss (apart from the slight issue of there not yet being a bus), this cannot be said for Escorca, Manacor or Valldemossa. None of the town halls have been properly consulted or informed by the Council. The mayor of Escorca, speaking about the Council's announcement that it is thinking of stopping vehicles entering Sa Calobra (and having a shuttle bus from somewhere - and "where" would be a good question), says that the Council has demonstrated "irresponsibility". It has made its announcement without any consensual agreement.
It's the same story in Valldemossa regarding access to the port, while in Manacor (for Cala Varques), the mayor says there's been no dialogue. He doesn't know where the shuttle bus would leave from or where it would drop people off.
The Council, and specifically its councillor for land, Mercedes Garrido, was going on about shuttle buses last year. Another one she was eyeing up was for the Es Comú part of the beach in Playa de Muro. At the time she mentioned this, Muro's mayor said that it was an idea worth looking into but had received no information. He's still waiting. As will be the mayor of Santa Margalida, given that Can Picafort would be a more likely location for a park and ride scheme to service the beach.
So, the Council is merrily going around, coming up with ideas for shuttle buses that town halls have no idea of and which will imply charges to citizens. At the same time, they're rescuing the tunnel. There may well be a very good need for restricting traffic in certain parts of the island, but I'm afraid the Council's logic is contrary.
Instead of announcing shuttle bus plans in a piecemeal manner, there is clearly the need for a coherent debate that involves town halls, regional government and others. There are parts of the island that cannot cope with the traffic and the numbers of people. This is becoming abundantly clear, and it isn't just because of tourists. Residents, the citizens, go to these beaches just as much if not more than tourists. Tolls by the backdoor may be the only solution, but a proper debate needs to be had.
Showing posts with label Coves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coves. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 02, 2017
Monday, August 24, 2015
Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days Of Summer
Do you remember the stereogram? It predated the days of the music centre, a massive sideboard type affair with a record deck stuck inside it and, as the name implied, two speakers built into its wooden frame. We had one of these home-entertainment leviathans. It occupied most of one side of the dining-room, somewhere into which no one ventured except at Christmas. The stereogram's contents were a tribute to times prior to and on the cusp of the invention of modern life, i.e. when The Beatles created the new world. Among the parental record collection was Nat King Cole's "Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer", the cover of which showed a small, rocky cove and a scene of lazy, hazy and crazy that wasn't particularly any of these things save for the haze of brown that dominated the colours. These were also the days before Photoshop, Lightroom and advanced photographic and production techniques.
On some small, rocky cove in Mallorca one would hope that the island's politicians were being lazy if not hazy or crazy. Sadly, they are not. High summer and the living should be easy and everyone can go into soporific meltdown for a time: myself included. These are not though the days circa 1963 when a Mallorcan politician, such as he was (and it would have been he), would have been neither seen nor heard. They were, politically, lazy days. They were crazy admittedly, but the craziness, in a Mallorca style, owed more to the first pilgrims of the jet age. Small, rocky coves were out. Artificial beaches, vast expenses thereof, were in.
Trust politicians to belatedly discover small coves though. Manacor's have. It was all too easily predictable, and I did predict it. Kick up a fuss about a cove - Cala Varques - look to reduce numbers on this unspoiled beach, start banning cars, draw attention to somewhere otherwise not well known, and bingo: more people than ever descend on it. If it's as wonderful as the politicians were intimating, then it's worth discovering. Did they not realise this in Manacor? Clearly not.
High summer and the politicians should all be "tranquilo", but they can't be when they have so much to prove. They are of the new, new world, the one of political accountability and transparency. Far from allowing a silly season to prevail, they are dashing hither and thither in crazed, unlazy fashion, creating an occasional Brian Rix-farce season instead of the merely silly: I offer Manacor as evidence of this.
At the head of this feverish summertime activity is the tourism dynamo, Biel Barceló. Manacor today, Soller tomorrow, Menorca the next. His four-year mission? To seek out new coves, new resorts. To boldly go where no tourism minister has gone before. So, there's no time like the present to begin the mission. Perhaps it's all an attempt to divert attention from the eco-tax and the high farce of the mooted airport collection scheme.
On some small, rocky cove in Mallorca one would hope that the island's politicians were being lazy if not hazy or crazy. Sadly, they are not. High summer and the living should be easy and everyone can go into soporific meltdown for a time: myself included. These are not though the days circa 1963 when a Mallorcan politician, such as he was (and it would have been he), would have been neither seen nor heard. They were, politically, lazy days. They were crazy admittedly, but the craziness, in a Mallorca style, owed more to the first pilgrims of the jet age. Small, rocky coves were out. Artificial beaches, vast expenses thereof, were in.
Trust politicians to belatedly discover small coves though. Manacor's have. It was all too easily predictable, and I did predict it. Kick up a fuss about a cove - Cala Varques - look to reduce numbers on this unspoiled beach, start banning cars, draw attention to somewhere otherwise not well known, and bingo: more people than ever descend on it. If it's as wonderful as the politicians were intimating, then it's worth discovering. Did they not realise this in Manacor? Clearly not.
High summer and the politicians should all be "tranquilo", but they can't be when they have so much to prove. They are of the new, new world, the one of political accountability and transparency. Far from allowing a silly season to prevail, they are dashing hither and thither in crazed, unlazy fashion, creating an occasional Brian Rix-farce season instead of the merely silly: I offer Manacor as evidence of this.
At the head of this feverish summertime activity is the tourism dynamo, Biel Barceló. Manacor today, Soller tomorrow, Menorca the next. His four-year mission? To seek out new coves, new resorts. To boldly go where no tourism minister has gone before. So, there's no time like the present to begin the mission. Perhaps it's all an attempt to divert attention from the eco-tax and the high farce of the mooted airport collection scheme.
Thursday, August 06, 2015
Beaches Becoming No-Go Areas
Manacor isn't promoting its coves. The town hall's latest guide for tourists has removed the coves, they are non-beaches. The belief is that by not mentioning the coves, "massification" can be avoided. The unspoiled nature of the coves will be conserved, their ecologies will be sustained. Manacor is on a mission for "tourism of greater quality". Instead of the coves, this tourism, via the guide, will be directed to the beaches where there is massification - those of the town's resorts, none of which are, compared with others on Mallorca, that big, but they are big enough to qualify for the massification tag.
There is some sensible but at the same time curious and questionable thinking behind all this. The sense comes in not wanting the coves to be swamped. The curious aspect is that the horribly described "quality tourism" consists in part of precisely the type of tourism that would prefer a cove to a resort beach. The questionable part arises because whatever Manacor does by way of not promoting the coves will not make a scrap of difference. Is the town hall unaware that there is a great big world out there? One on the world wide web.
Making a song and dance, which the town hall is, about Cala Varques in particular is going to have precisely the opposite effect to what the council intends. No one had heard of it before. They know it now. Yes, there are new restrictions on parking that are designed to avoid "massification", but the town hall is thus providing promotion for this cove when non-inclusion in the guide is supposed to do otherwise. The fact is that parking has long been an issue. Trip Advisor can tell you that. Just as Trip Advisor, and other web sources, can tell you how "precioso" the cove is.
And will the town hall be passing on its message to its tourist offices and indeed tourist offices elsewhere. If you have ever spent time observing what is asked at tourist offices, you'll be aware that one of the top questions has to do with the "precioso" cove. Out come maps, and the information office personnel only too happily point it out. Or will it be notifying the tourism ministry with its extensive guide to beaches? Go to this and there is a seemingly endless list of Cala here, Cala there, some of which are the large calas that are beach resorts, but mostly they are the small ones: Cala Varques for example.
This guide does actually advise you to access the cove by sea. Not because it wishes to deter you from driving but because it points out that there is a bit of a trek to get to it. Access by boat is as much an issue for Manacor as by car: they want to clamp down on that as well.
For years, Mallorca has made much of the fact that it isn't an island that only has large resort beaches. The ministry's website, in describing Cala Varques, refers to the quiet and paradise nature of the coastline from Porto Cristo. The vastly overused "paradise" has consistently been adopted to promote the coves, the alternatives to the resort beaches: tourism of greater quality, one might suggest.
Now, however, Manacor wants to put an end to all of this. Which other town halls might follow suit? Are certain beaches around Mallorca to become virtual no-go areas because town halls say so, thus flouting a fundamental principle that the coasts of Mallorca (and Spain) are in the public domain and free to the public to enjoy?
Despite this, one can understand the town hall's position. But it is one that has been forced onto it by success, by promotion through means other than those of the town hall and by sheer weight of numbers: tourists adding to the residents who make a beeline for beaches at weekends and will be doing so during the weeks of August when many are on holiday. Simply put, are Mallorca's beaches being overwhelmed? And is the infrastructure, especially parking, incapable of coping? The answer to the latter question is yes. As examples there has been the chaos in Sa Rapita (for access to Es Trenc) because the unofficial car park was closed. There is the mayhem in Playa de Muro with people wanting to get to Es Comú beach. Neither beach is small. Both are vast, yet the infrastructure can't cope with the demand.
Something, you feel, has to give. Either more parking is made available (though goodness knows where in many instances) or there will be more cases of drivers being turned away by police, as can happen in Sa Rapita, or of passes for residents being issued, which is what has happened by Es Comú. The beaches, the coves are products of their own success and, despite what Manacor might wish, of promotion.
There is some sensible but at the same time curious and questionable thinking behind all this. The sense comes in not wanting the coves to be swamped. The curious aspect is that the horribly described "quality tourism" consists in part of precisely the type of tourism that would prefer a cove to a resort beach. The questionable part arises because whatever Manacor does by way of not promoting the coves will not make a scrap of difference. Is the town hall unaware that there is a great big world out there? One on the world wide web.
Making a song and dance, which the town hall is, about Cala Varques in particular is going to have precisely the opposite effect to what the council intends. No one had heard of it before. They know it now. Yes, there are new restrictions on parking that are designed to avoid "massification", but the town hall is thus providing promotion for this cove when non-inclusion in the guide is supposed to do otherwise. The fact is that parking has long been an issue. Trip Advisor can tell you that. Just as Trip Advisor, and other web sources, can tell you how "precioso" the cove is.
And will the town hall be passing on its message to its tourist offices and indeed tourist offices elsewhere. If you have ever spent time observing what is asked at tourist offices, you'll be aware that one of the top questions has to do with the "precioso" cove. Out come maps, and the information office personnel only too happily point it out. Or will it be notifying the tourism ministry with its extensive guide to beaches? Go to this and there is a seemingly endless list of Cala here, Cala there, some of which are the large calas that are beach resorts, but mostly they are the small ones: Cala Varques for example.
This guide does actually advise you to access the cove by sea. Not because it wishes to deter you from driving but because it points out that there is a bit of a trek to get to it. Access by boat is as much an issue for Manacor as by car: they want to clamp down on that as well.
For years, Mallorca has made much of the fact that it isn't an island that only has large resort beaches. The ministry's website, in describing Cala Varques, refers to the quiet and paradise nature of the coastline from Porto Cristo. The vastly overused "paradise" has consistently been adopted to promote the coves, the alternatives to the resort beaches: tourism of greater quality, one might suggest.
Now, however, Manacor wants to put an end to all of this. Which other town halls might follow suit? Are certain beaches around Mallorca to become virtual no-go areas because town halls say so, thus flouting a fundamental principle that the coasts of Mallorca (and Spain) are in the public domain and free to the public to enjoy?
Despite this, one can understand the town hall's position. But it is one that has been forced onto it by success, by promotion through means other than those of the town hall and by sheer weight of numbers: tourists adding to the residents who make a beeline for beaches at weekends and will be doing so during the weeks of August when many are on holiday. Simply put, are Mallorca's beaches being overwhelmed? And is the infrastructure, especially parking, incapable of coping? The answer to the latter question is yes. As examples there has been the chaos in Sa Rapita (for access to Es Trenc) because the unofficial car park was closed. There is the mayhem in Playa de Muro with people wanting to get to Es Comú beach. Neither beach is small. Both are vast, yet the infrastructure can't cope with the demand.
Something, you feel, has to give. Either more parking is made available (though goodness knows where in many instances) or there will be more cases of drivers being turned away by police, as can happen in Sa Rapita, or of passes for residents being issued, which is what has happened by Es Comú. The beaches, the coves are products of their own success and, despite what Manacor might wish, of promotion.
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