The end of summer is just around the corner and the focus on the maintenance of beaches is waning, which has Playa Marina del Este panicking.

But it’s not only the beach with its shelf left by a storm, but also the maintenance of the beach on the other side of the marina’s mouth.

Whereas Motril beaches, or the ones belonging to Carchuna-Calahonda, received plenty of publicity and solutions were found… Playa Marina del Este has languished all summer long with this ‘feature,’ which, many consider, has damaged the summer tourism there.

The Town Hall rejected numerous complaints, pointing out that this shelf or step, some 300 metres long, acts as a natural beach defence when there is strong surf. If they flatten it, says the Councillor for Tourism, Daniel Barbero, the waves will reach the the beach showers and changing rooms and even the parking area. In other words, the step breaks the waves up before they can reach further up the beach.

Residents are not convinced and accuse the Town Hall of failing to maintain the beach but the councillor says what is needed is for Costas to do something more permanent about it. In fact, far from abandoning the area to its fate, he claims that they spent the summer repairing cracks that had appeared along the paseo, as well as installing a new shower unit there.

Local, irate residents, however, say that the only people who take the trouble of keeping the beach decent is one of the chiringuito owners there, who hires a tractor to ‘rake’ the beach.

But it’s not only the beach because residents of the urbanizaciones above the port claim that the Town Hall has ignored them, as well. The road surfaces are deteriorated and public lighting has been scant for several years, which is where the First Councillor for La Herradura, Juan José Ruiz Joya, chimed in.

He claims that it is the company that runs the port who has the responsibility of maintaining the roads leading down to it; i.e., from the Urbanizaciones del Ferro del Hierro down to the marina itself. In other words, the care and maintenance for this area has never been officially adopted by the Town Hall.

As for the Urbanización de la Punta de la Mona, the law courts ordered the Town Hall to take on maintenance task in 2016 but they appealed against this decision so that the situation remains in limbo until there is a final court decision.

(News: Herradura, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)