I’ve Still Got Sand In My Shoes

Don’t worry. They’re not going to stop you using the beaches. Quite the opposite in fact. Beach liberation and an end to de facto privatisation of the coastline! The people’s beaches!

The Environment Ministry has spoken. Its plan for the sustainability of the coastline has scrutinised hotels, dwellings, swimming-pools, beach-bars, nautical clubs; even the power station in Alcúdia and the military base in Puerto Pollensa have come under its low-energy-bulb spotlight.

To recap. The Government (central that is) could use the law to remove any property that has been built in what it considers to be an illegal fashion on public coastline. This affects much of the island. The additional background to this is the environmental damage that has been caused (and is being caused) by development that has gone hand-in-hand with Mallorca’s success as a tourist destination. And then there is climate change. A fifteen-centimetre rise in sea level by the middle of the century poses its own threat to beaches such as Alcúdia and Muro.

Demolition of hotels is perhaps the greatest headline-catcher. In the north one hotel is likely to get the swinging-ball and bulldozer - Don Pedro in Cala San Vicente. In the south there are, apparently, four beaches which are not accessible because of hotels. Solution: knock the hotels down.

The report recommends relocating the power station in Alcúdia (not the old one, the new one). It also recommends privatising the port of the military base in Puerto Pollensa (for reasons that escape me) and modification to or the re-siting of two nautical clubs in the south. And what was I saying the other day about people on beaches? Seemingly there are numerous examples of beaches where individual space is only five square metres when it should be between seven and twelve, a cause for ecological alarm in its own right because of the pressure this crowding creates. Presumably the liberation of the beaches will help to spread the load.

“El País”, from where some of the above comes, says that half-a-dozen hotels are targeted for demolition on three islands, not just on Mallorca (but when the paper starts to itemise these, along with the threatened hotels which block access, the number rises). Don Pedro though would be no surprise; this has been spoken about for ages. The hotel-demolition “headline” is a bit overplayed; the greatest threat to hotels is where they have say swimming-pools or terraces on public land.

What is not being talked about is wholesale demolition of residences (other than reference to “chalés irregulares”). Indeed the focus for private residences is more where these have created private areas in denying public access to the coastline, as in the case of the Costa de los Pinos on the east coast; the houses themselves are not the issue, pools and gardens are.

I had rather expected something more dramatic. Talk of “paradise and chaos” and “barbarism” is hyperbole. The proposals are, in certain instances, long-term, such as the relocation of the power station, and one wonders whether that would happen. Cases such as Don Pedro are not new. The beach-bars are soft options. Maybe it is just politicking after all.


QUIZ
Yesterday - Bruce Springsteen. Today’s title - which emoting songstress?

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Nobody On The Beach

A retreat of the beach by between six and twelve metres by 2050.

This is just one of the conclusions of an Environment Ministry report highlighted in today’s “Ultima Hora”. The beach in question is on the bay of Pollensa, which must mean Puerto Pollensa.

The report recommends immediate action and the adoption of a new model for the management of the island’s coastline to take account of climate change. But climate change is not the only issue exercising those charged with overseeing coastline protection. There are numerous examples of building on the public areas of coastline, by implication illegal building. This follows on from what I noted on 30 October about the Spanish Government’s intention to invoke legislation against such building. The parts of coastline that have the most cases of this are the bays of Pollensa and Alcúdia. Specific mention is made of “chiringuitos” and “balnearios” (which for English purposes can both be called beach-bars) as well as other buildings, parking areas and pools. There are also concerns regarding residential building in Formentor and Cala San Vicente.

This is not the first time that the beach-bars have come under the gaze of the coastal protectors, but now it could be that something will be done. It is also not the first time that the issue of public beach area has cropped up - it was a part of this summer’s whole sunbed and beach umbrella fandango on the beach of Playa de Muro.

Illegal, or allegedly illegal building is hardly a revelation in Mallorca or indeed elsewhere in Spain. If the beach-bars contravene, then legally they should go. But how desirable would that really be? That they occupy public area is probably indisputable, but they also offer a public service in that public area. Walk along the bay of Alcúdia from the port as far as the furthest reaches of Playa de Muro’s urbanisation, and there are numerous beach-bars. Few, if any, could be said to be limiting public space on what is after all a generally deep beach (at present, at any rate) or on dunes where they reside alongside other buildings. Make them relocate beyond the 100-metre limit, and where would they go? Take another couple of cases - the chiringuitos in the coves of San Juan and San Pedro in Mal Pas. They can only be where they are - more or less next to the water’s edge. Take them away and what would happen? Might people be less inclined to go to the beaches here, might they still come and create more of their own damage of litter?

Doing away with the beach-bars, or placing them somewhere well-removed from either the beach or the sea cuts away at another of the rather abstract attractions of beach-and-sun holidays. There is a romanticism to a beach-bar and its proximity to the sea. Similarly, there was a romanticism to being able to sit on a terrace bar till two in the morning with some musical background until the universal midnight curfew was effected. Maybe these beach-bars are illegal, but I for one would not like to see them disappear.

Are the beach-bars environmentally damaging? Of course they are. But all human intervention on the coastlines or beaches damages the environment. I once joked about the sign on the rustic beach at Playa de Muro which asked for people to brush off the sand, but it’s a fact that you go lie on the beach and you will remove some sand. Similarly, if you walk along the beach, you will remove some sand. The outcome of the environmental case would be to make beaches no-go areas: nobody should be on the beach.

The retreat of the beach is quite another issue. If it is as great as is being suggested (and it could well be much greater), the question of beach-bars (and other building) will start to become irrelevant anyway.


QUIZ
Yesterday - China Crisis. Today’s title - it’s a line from? (Clue: it’s quite a famous “summer” song).

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