Beachgoers endangered by lack of safe swimming area buoys in Torrevieja

The lack of beach bars and other basic services ill-befits a top-level tourist destination, argues Sueña Torrevieja

With summer almost upon us, Torrevieja’s beaches still do not have buoys in place to mark out the areas where it is safe to swim.

Aside from the risk that this poses to bathers, other basic beach services have not been set up either, including beach bars, hammocks and parasols, and cleaning of the toilets.

The blame for these deficiencies has been levelled at the council by opposition party Sueña Torrevieja.
They note that the safety buoys were scheduled to have been installed by April 12, and warn that it puts people swimming in danger of being hit by boats, especially at times as busy as it was over Easter.

Although the procedure to award the contract for the buoys was approved by the local government committee (JGL) on February 21, the public contracts committee decided, on May 16, that the bids would have to be reevaluated because there were faults with six of the key evaluation criteria.

This forced part of the administrative procedure to be repeated but, as of May 28, there had been no update on the public contracts website to indicate that any progress has been made.

As if this were not enough, the beach bars should have been open by March 15 but the contract for the new concession still has not been awarded.

As a result, there are no hammocks or parasols either, and nor is there a service to clean and maintain the beach toilets.

“What we are seeing is the result of disastrous management,” according to Sueña Torrevieja spokesman Pablo Samper.

He assured it is not normal for the beaches to be without the most basic services so late in the year, and questioned whether the town hall is waiting for a serious accident to happen before it takes action.

Despite all this, at the full council meeting on April 29, the councillor responsible assured that everything was “right on time” to receive the distinctions for quality.

“What beaches was he referring to?” asked Samper.

“We are asking for clear explanations and urgent solutions. We cannot allow a few people’s incompetence to harm members of the public and the tourism sector, which is the economic engine of Torrevieja.”

The beaches of nearby Orihuela Costa have suffered a similar lack of organisation to get the chiringuitos and beach facilities ready for the high tourist season, with beach bars absent on that part of the coast for two years, which also negatively affects the local economy. 

Image: Sueña Torrevieja