This has already become a year with its share of beach service provision controversy, for example in Puerto Pollensa and Can Picafort, and now GOB, the environmental lobby group, has called on the Costas Authority not to authorise various requests for facilities and activities on certain beaches in the Balearics. It has done so as it maintains that there are irregularities in the processing of these requests and indeed some authorisation.
The group says that authorisation procedures are not complying with the Costas' regulations and that this absence of compliance amounts to malfeasance. They have come to GOB's attention, it would appear, during the study of legal points of order raised in respect of the plan for chiringuito beach-bars in Son Serra de Marina.
Having seen various requests by individuals and companies for beach services that were published on the Official Bulletin, GOB has sent a letter to the Costas and pointed to what it says are examples of non-compliance. Specifically, it has referred to what it sees as a lack of transparency and impartiality and a need for beach service provision to be open to tender competition.
GOB finds it particularly surprising that each year hundreds of jobs and privately operated activities are authorised when there are contraventions of the regulations. These state that authorisation of this kind can only be made if town halls have failed to submit their requests on time and in the correct manner.