The absence of actions to repair the lack of sand on the beaches of Sitges has again outraged the local Hospitality Guild days before Easter. Yesterday began the season on the sands, including the rescue service, and it took place in a situation that the tourism sector describes as an “emergency”, no longer only on the urban beaches, but also on the promenade, for the lack of sand protection.
From the guild they say: “Not only do we note that no progress has been made in the short term to ensure a better beach season in 2024, as we obviously hoped, but a series of meetings have taken place and a series of of statements in which the message has been precisely in the opposite direction, that is to say not to take any action and, therefore, to let the complicated situation of the urban beaches of the municipality worsen”.
In some, such as the central Bassa Rodona beach, the lack of sand is very noticeable. The situation has caused the representatives of hotels and restaurants to leave the Coastal Management Board, of a technical nature, after considering that “it is empty of content”. The president of the guild, Oskar Stöber Blázquez, told La Vanguardia that “we are fed up with the situation, after five years without performances on the beaches”. He regrets that there is no project “neither present nor future”.
The Sitges Hospitality Guild already requested on September 7 that the mandate of the municipal plenum be fulfilled to authorize the dumping of sand from the dredging of the municipality’s ports on the urban beaches and, in this way, ” guarantee a certain stabilization for the next summer season”. The municipal government is accused of not having acted sufficiently in advance. His participation in the Coastal Management Board was conditioned “to work in the short, medium and long term. The Gremi d’Hostaleria denounces that there has been a tendency for years by different administrations to “talk about long-term solutions, which only lead to the commissioning of studies and more studies, without anything materializing, unlike the what happens in neighboring municipalities, which do carry out beach survival actions in the short term, while they work on stable actions in the medium and long term”.
The mayor of Sitges, Aurora Carbonell, says she respects the union’s decision to leave the Coastal Management Board, although she still defends it. He claims that it was not only created to find solutions for the loss of sand, but also for the effects of climate change. And he adds that this table has already produced results, such as the monitoring of Sant Sebastià beach “to see what changes it has”. He also assures that they are working on an extensive project for the Bassa Rodona beach area after meeting with representatives of the Spanish and Catalan governments. They want to protect the coastal area and also the promenade. Carbonell recalls that “under no circumstances do we refuse to bring sand to the beaches, but we do not want to make a public expenditure that will not last due to the storms that usually occur in May and June”. The mayor assures that “this year the beaches are well prepared” and points to the fact that the higher administrations advise them to look for long-term sustainable measures and not to put patches that do not solve anything”.
The beach season will last until October 13. Various activities, such as catering, sunbeds, awnings or water sports will be gradually rolled out until June. The City Council has extended the contract for the coastal cleaning service with a boat equipped with low-consumption ecological engines. Last summer, 734 kilos of waste were collected.
