It was one of those grand promises that are made either prior to an election or in its immediate aftermath. I forget exactly when it was made - this isn’t important - but the promise of six new shiny balnearios (beach bars) on Alcudia beach will not be ready by the start of the tourism season, the first of May.
This much we learned last month. We now also learn that work on the new bars will occur during the season. Yes, when there are all those people on the beach. But they will be shielded them from the sight of the work. Mayor Fina Linares says that the shield will be one of “beautiful images” and that these images will be on display on tarpaulins.
One can already sense the TripAdvisor ratings for the beach slipping. Seriously, a load of tarpaulins to obscure the work? And what of any noise? As it is town hall work, the seasonal ban on noisy construction doesn’t apply. Maybe some beautiful music will be blaring out to disguise the noise.
How has this happened? According to Podemos (in opposition), it’s because no budgetary forecast was made. And this does seem to be the case, the mayor saying that the contract for the new balnearios will be signed before the 2023 budget is finally approved. At the most recent council meeting, another opposition party (PSOE) suggested that it might be an idea to delay the work until the end of the high season (at the earliest). This can’t be done because the Costas Authority - yes, them - have granted an extension for the work to be completed no later than November 30.
The first thing that needs to be done is to demolish the existing bars, and one trusts that this won’t be after the season starts. The mayor hopes that the replacements will have been completed before the Costas deadline. What if it isn’t? She hints that bar concessionaires could in fact have two to three months of service this year, including November, “as it is still hot” in November. Hmm, yes, sometimes.
The opposition have naturally enough been implicated in the blame for the delay. The work should have been put out to tender “long before our arrival” (the Partido Popular plus Vox plus Unió per Alcudia). Maybe, but the PP did make its promise and the mayor did assure concerned hoteliers last August that the bars would be ready to go for the 2024 season. She adds that the local hoteliers association is in agreement with the beautiful images on the tarpaulins. One imagines that the association has had rather more to say on the matter than express its approval for displays of posidonia sea grass meadows or whatever the town hall has in mind.
Ignoring the sensible - Formentor restrictions
It seemed perfectly sensible. If the various authorities with an interest in the Formentor peninsula, its environmental sensitivity, its dodgy road, its traffic and its people were really serious, then the restrictions on private vehicles would apply to the whole of the summer season - from May 1 to October 31. This was what Pollensa town hall had asked. Having sent the request to the traffic directorate (DGT) and got no reply, the town hall discovered a few days ago that arrangements for this year hadn’t only been decided, they were in black and white and official. The Official Bulletin of State had pronounced, and the restrictions were unaltered - June 1 to September, 10am to 10.30pm every day.
The pilot scheme for the restrictions was in 2018. They were fully enforced in 2019 and extended by four weeks last year. Teething issues and all that, but these various authorities do now know what the issues are. For instance, as soon as the restrictions are lifted, there is the dreaded “saturation”. The town hall would ideally like there to be restrictions into November, and they wouldn’t go amiss in April either; April is in fact far more justifiable than November.
Something else they know, which brings in the government and the Council of Mallorca as they are both involved with bus services, concerns the so-called shuttle bus service. This doesn’t operate when there are no restrictions, and when it does operate, the buses tend to be full by the time they get to Puerto Pollensa, which is where the Council of Mallorca recommends that people park their cars in order to get the bus. When this service started, it was only from Puerto Pollensa. Then it was extended to Alcudia. It’s not the most satisfactory arrangement.
There is much greater use of the bus service than there was and there has been a fall - not huge - in the total number of vehicles on the Formentor road, but the restrictions continue not to be optimal if, as I note, there is meant to be real seriousness about the peninsula. They, the authorities, have had enough experience to now appreciate what is required, but the only authority which appears to is the town hall. And the town hall doesn’t have any specific competence for these restrictions. The Formentor road isn’t its responsibility; it can’t apply restrictions.
It was the town hall who proposed, pretty much from the get-go, that there should be road barriers in Puerto Pollensa. There now are, and it has been the town hall that has been asking for extended restrictions’ periods, the latest request having been ignored.
One of these days, perhaps they’ll get the arrangements right. Meanwhile, there is the ongoing nonsense with the car park by the hotel. This is still being operated by the hotel, despite an agreement to hand it over to the town hall; this was part of the deal for the hotel’s redevelopment. As Pollensa’s mayor, Marti March, explains, the town hall is still waiting for a ruling from the courts, adding that whichever way this ruling goes, “it will be appealed”. Of course it will be. Annual revenue from the car park runs into seven figures.