End-of-course holidays in Mallorca for Spanish students have started and they have provoked the inevitable complaints.
Arenal is one of the resorts for these 'study trips'. As in previous years, the situation is much the same as it has always been. The noise in the streets and on the beaches starts after dinner. Street drinking parties break out - the 'botellón'. Later, there are events, the locations for which vary. One of the locations is the car park of the waterpark. It is away from the residential area, so there is relative calm until the students return.
Alexandro Gaffar, a councillor for the Llibertat Llucmajor group, accuses the town hall administration of once more having abandoned the residents of Arenal to their fate - anti-social behaviour and vandalism that the "so-called student tourism brings". "Waves of students invade the streets on the frontline. Residents are kept awake by the noise - the screaming and objects being broken - and by the fear caused by the fact that many underage people are drinking alcohol on public streets in the middle of the night."
At the town hall there was a meeting of the security board last week to try and find a solution to the problem. For residents, the solution would be to prevent these "study trips" from next year, a request that is made year after year without ever achieving anything.