Nerja council have announced that the funding that they normally receive from the regional government of Andalucia for cleaning the beaches and, more importantly, laying out the safety buoys, has been cut. In a letter from the local government association the Mancomunidad de Municipios de la Costa del Sol Axarquía, Nerja council have been told that this year the Junta will not be providing the necessary funding to the coastal towns. In Nerja’s case, the council will have to find the close to €100,000 cost of this operation themselves.
The regional government of Andalucia has one of the highest deficits of all of the autonomous governments in Spain and is being forced to make cuts to its budget to comply with central government spending rules.
The councillor for beaches, Nieves Atencia, has said that she will be writing to the Junta to ask them to reconsider making this cut “to a sector so important to Nerja” and that she considers the buoys as “something essential for the safety of our bathers”.
Every year at the start of the season, the yellow marker buoys are deployed by work boats along the coastline. The buoys mark the limit of the swimming area – boats under power and jetskis must stay out of this area.
In Nerja, the buoys normally start at the western end of Playazo beach and run all the way to the end of Maro’s beaches. In the autumn the work boat comes round again and removes all the buoys, which then go back into storage, in the yard on the banks of the Rio Chillar, ready for the next season.
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