It doesn't matter whether it's the sunbeds next to a hotel swimming pool or any beach early in the morning - absentee users are a bane.

We’re talking about people who get up early, stake out their claim on the beach and then disappear for several hours, whilst those that actually are there and need the space can’t have it.

Well, Torrenueva, following the example of Almuñécar and elsewhere along the coast, has cracked down on these absentee space hogs.

In fact, it was a couple of years ago that a local bylaw there prohibited this practice under pain of a damned good fining.

Yet at the beginning of this summer, according to the Mayor, unaccompanied beach umbrellas had been cropping up along the town’s beaches. So, the Policía Local went out and confiscated them and it worked… for a while.

With the arrival of the busiest tourist period, the early-morning brigade are again up to their usual tricks so the confiscations and fines are coming thick and fast.

How it works is that beach maintenance workers, supervised by police officers load the beach umbrellas, beach chairs and towels into a lorry and put them into storage. To retrieve your missing beach equipment, you have to pay a fine that varies in amount according to how much equipment you left on the beach.

However,  the Torrenueva Costa Town Hall has yet to learn that the culprits now employ a cheaper tactic; they buy a cheap brolly from the Chinese bazaars and stake out their spot with it, so if it does get confiscated, they’re not going to pay fine to retrieve it because they still have their quality beach umbrella for a day on the beach.

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