Salobreña unveils a new pedestrianised promenade with extensive green spaces

This project follows on from an initial phase carried out several years ago between the mouth of the River Guadalfeo and the Salomar 2000 residential area, where a pedestrian promenade was created at the time. With this project, the town hall has sought to extend this model and move towards what Javier Ortega, the mayor of Salobreña, described as a "borderless" promenade between the beach and the town.

The work, with a budget of one million euros, began in March and was originally due to be completed in June, as it is being carried out using European Union Next Generation funds, through the Destination Tourism Sustainability Plan (PSTD), which set that date as the deadline for completion. The work has taken longer than planned, a fact acknowledged by the mayor himself, although he insisted that the delay "does not jeopardise the project’s funding".

The aim of the redevelopment, as Ortega explained, was to do away with the traditional separation between the promenade and the sand. “We were used to having a beach or a promenade that was practically separated from the beach by a wall. What we have tried to do is to integrate the promenade, the beach and all the street furniture on it, so that there is as much harmony as possible.”

There is no longer a boundary between the sand and the promenade, which means that leisure and sport activities that were previously confined to the beach can now extend onto the promenade as well. In this regard, the new space features areas for playing pétanque, beach volleyball courts and calisthenics areas as well as extensive green spaces and recreational areas. The town hall explained that the inclusion of vegetation “aims to reduce the presence of hard surfaces, improve thermal comfort during the hottest months and help the coastline adapt better to the effects of climate change”.

“We wanted it to be a functional promenade, particularly in terms of pedestrian traffi and one that would create small micro-spaces where play areas could be situated,” explained the mayor, who added that it is a multi-purpose space which, even while still under construction, was already open for residents and visitors to enjoy.

In addition to the sports and green areas, work is currently being carried out on the public toilets along the promenade to reduce their visual impact, with the automatic cubicles that have already been installed being repainted.

“The pedestrianisation of the promenade is also intended to boost tourism, one of the municipality’s economic drivers, as the project will breathe new life into this area, having a positive impact on the whole town by providing a high-quality space that enhances tourist activity,” said Ortega.

The mayor denied a report which, as he explained, “has been circulating on social media all summer, claiming that Salobreña would have to repay 2.5 million euros of the European grant it had received”. He went on to say, “We’ve spent the whole summer seeing on social media and in the news that Salobreña is going to have to repay two and a half million euros. I completely refute this claim, because it’s not true; that’s not how it works,” said Ortega.

The mayor explained that the town hall has been given a grant totalling 2.5 million euros, an amount which corresponds to all the projects included in the plan, not just the promenade project. The town hall has currently applied for an extension to complete all the planned projects. And, as he explained, even in the worst-case scenario, if that extension were not granted and the deadline were to remain 30 June, the town hall would only have to repay the portion of the work that had not been completed by that date.

As at 30 June, work on the promenade was around 80 per cent complete; therefore, as this is a project costing one million euros, the amount to be repaid in the worst-case scenario would be around 200,000 euros, and certainly not the full 2.5 million that has been reported. Furthermore, the mayor stressed that these are separate grants for each project, so any delay in one project does not affect or jeopardise the others.

Ortega acknowledged that the promenade project “has been a complex undertaking”, but he also wished to highlight another factor which, in his view, has had a decisive influence on the timetable, namely “the slowness of the Andalusian regional government in processing the necessary permits”.

“It may seem trivial, but the work itself took less time than it did for the Andalusian regional government to grant the necessary licences and permits to allow us to begin,” said the mayor, who considered that this “was another of the factors that caused the delay compared with the originally planned schedule”.