The El Vendrell City Council and the Ministry of Ecological Transition will demolish some walls and access stairs to the beaches this month so that the maritime façade is more resilient to storms.
The concrete walkways that are distributed along the seven kilometers of beach that the municipality has will also be removed. The removal of all these elements will be carried out in parallel with the delimitation of several stretches of sand where the aim is to promote dune recovery, both by natural movement and by replanting native plants.
"The beaches should be a place of leisure, leisure and tourism but we must also preserve them as natural spaces," the mayor of El Vendrell, Kenneth Martínez, defended this Thursday.
The different actions will be deployed in the towns of Sant Salvador, Coma-ruga and Francàs with a contribution of 300,000 euros from the Ministry, in line with the announcement that the Vendrellense government made a little over a year ago. Now the local executive has specified that the measures will begin to be developed this April, with a first phase of works to remove the concrete elements that have been damaged, such as two flights of stairs in the Masía Blanca area.
Elements that condition the evolution of the beaches will also be removed before the summer, such as the small walls of Sant Salvador or the walkways, which will be replaced by wooden elements that can be removed outside of the bathing season. Martínez has justified the change in the appearance of the Sant Salvador promenade "to avoid escape points for sand or even water in the event of a rise in sea level."
The intention of the City Council and the General Directorate of Coasts is to take advantage of the spring to also begin to mark the square meters of sand where dune recovery is desired. This part of the project, however, is expected to be completed in the fall, said Martínez, who said that it will be in the final stretch of the year when native species will be planted to help retain the sand.
Finally, the mayor has also announced that this summer it is planned to carry out internal sand movements between the beaches of the seven kilometers of the municipality to compensate for the points with the most losses. Part of these movements will be included in the new specifications of the new beach cleaning contract, where the commitment to reduce the use of machinery to a minimum is maintained.
On the other hand, the City Council has avoided specifying when the smoke-free and noise-free beaches included in the ordinance approved two years ago will be marked. Martínez has cooled the possibility of these spaces coming into operation this summer "because they are regulations that require a lot of pedagogy." "You go to the beaches to enjoy yourself, not to have a feeling of surveillance, so a lot of awareness needs to be raised," he answered questions from the press.
Asked directly about the delimitation of these spaces starting this summer, he said that the local government "does not rule it out", although he specified that the deployment of the project to remove elements and recover the dunes is only now beginning, "which is already It will generate enough commotion and we do not want to add more.”
