Enjoying the sun and the beach in Sitges is becoming more and more difficult. In the coves of fine and golden sand in the tourist town of El Garraf it is not easy to live, as the American musician Dennis Wilson said. The strength of the waves from storm Nelson worsened the already poor situation of the local beaches last week. Some, like the Bassa Rodona, had practically disappeared before the storm.
At 11 am yesterday, the sun was half shining on the central beach of Sant Sebastià. It is partly cloudy and the thermometer shows 19 degrees. But the calima and the wind of 18 km/h means that the day is not very pleasant. It’s a weekend when waterfront restaurants expect to fill up by midday. The promenade without a blanket top is quite busy. There are those who paint, those who walk, those who practice sports…
Sant Sebastià beach was the most affected by the storm. It has been reduced to the minimum expression. Fences block most of the accesses. You see very few people sunbathing on the sparse sand. Few enter the sea. The chef Valentí Mongay, co-owner of the La Salseta restaurant and user of this beach, hopes that some of the sand that has disappeared will return naturally for the high season, but he acknowledges that if this were not the case it would be “a serious problem”. What he regrets the most is that some water leaks from some works have left the sand wet and that you can’t even “place a towel” on it. He also criticizes the constant presence of masseurs and illegal sellers.
The terrace of the Amanit restaurant is full. Arianna Varela and Eliseo Cordewa, who work in this establishment, regret the situation and that the City Council has used “the excuse of the environment” for not providing dredged sand. They remember that “Sitges lives from tourism”. Hotel occupancy this weekend stands at 55%. Both the head of the municipal opposition, Mònica Gallardo (Junts per Sitges), and the Sitges Hospitality Association regret that it has already been five years of “inaction” on the part of the local government; and that the plenary agreement of September 7 of last year to authorize the dumping of dredging sand from the municipality’s ports on urban beaches has remained on wet paper. The mayor, Aurora Carbonell (ERC), is not opposed to the contribution of sand, but defends a stable solution. “We don’t want to make public spending that won’t last because of the storms that usually occur in May and June.” He recognizes that “it costs more and more to regenerate the beaches naturally”.
The president of the Hospitality Guild, Oskar Stöber, remembers that the storms have lashed the entire coast and not just Sitges, although he does not forget the “sorrow of many, consolation of fools”. He wants the heat to come and Sitges to fill up while he criticizes that the municipal government does not act, and only does a lot of studies and says that it is doing very well. Joan Anton Matas, co-owner of the local hotel and restaurant group Mates Arnalot, has no doubts that the lack of sand will affect “very negatively” the local economy. He assures that “there is not enough sand even for the residents of Sitges themselves”. He does not understand that while in other parts of the Catalan coast sand is brought from the dredging of the mouths of the ports and actions are taken to stabilize the sand, “nothing has been done in Sitges”. And he says that “there are permanent solutions to stabilize beaches that are ecological and sustainable”. For her part, the president of the Sitges Traders Association, Noemi Jiménez, assures that the lack of sand will affect them “in the long run”. “One of the main attractions to come to Sitges are our beaches”, he regrets.
