Praia da Marinha, one of the best known and most photographed beaches in the Algarve, is falling victim to its own success. Especially in August, hundreds and hundreds of bathers go – or try to go – to its increasingly narrow beach, congesting the access road, mainly because of the lack of parking, even creating situations of potential danger.
To try to resolve the situation, the Lagoa City Council is going to create a free parking lot for 300 vehicles, in a land close to the beach access. But the new parking lot will only be ready to operate in the next bathing season, in 2020.
Luís Encarnação, president of the Lagoon Chamber, revealed to the Sul Informação that the intervention will also include the «rehabilitation of the access road, with the creation of a footpath for people to walk». In all, the municipality will invest 450 thousand euros, he said.
Showing that the intervention is considered a priority by all, at the Municipal Assembly that took place last week, on 28 August, the launch of the Public Tender for the Requalification of Access and Parking at Praia da Marinha Beach was unanimously approved.
The car park will be installed on private land, but the Municipality has already signed a "protocol with the owner", as well as obtained "authorization from the CCDRA to move forward".
The works should begin this year, so that everything is ready next year, in time to «receive our visitors with all dignity and safety», said the mayor.
The Câmara de Lagoa had already intervened in the area last year, prohibiting parking along the entire side of the access road to the beach, so that traffic was not stopped. There were even situations in which cars were stuck, unable to move towards the beach or to get out of it, preventing even the access of rescue vehicles.
Previously, when the 7 Suspended Valleys footpath was created, the Municipality had already created a car park at the top of the cliff, which accommodates around fifty vehicles. A space that, in the summer period, proves to be too small for people to visit this bathing area.
This summer, like the Sul Informação he found at the site, even with the prohibition of parking on one side of the road (marked with a double continuous line painted in yellow along the edge and reinforced with the placement of stalls), there were many situations of congested car traffic, especially in August.
The lines of parked cars extended along the 1100 meters of the so-called Marinha road, sometimes even beyond that, to the area of the former winery of Caramujeira or the road outside, towards Benagil.
And there were those, with the typical smarty chic Portuguese, took the opportunity to earn money from the situation, as the owner of a land located in the middle of the access to the beach, who charged 2 euros to anyone who wanted to park their car there. On the wayside, there he was, last Friday, with an improvised sign saying «Parking 2€» and helping the love Lóleo to park their vehicles at the park.
It is with all these situations that the Câmara de Lagoa wants to end, ordering traffic and parking. «Praia da Marinha is the most iconic beach in the Algarve and is also where our pedestrian route of the 7 Suspended Valleys begins, so we have to take special care», explained the mayor Luís Encarnação.
Two years ago, the Municipality carried out a similar intervention in the neighboring and equally small beach of Benagil, creating a free car park and organizing parking along the road. Although there are still occasional situations of congestion, the situation has improved significantly.
Another situation that the Municipality wants to pay attention to is the evident narrowing of the beach at Praia da Marinha, reduced to a narrow strip of sand where no bather can be safe from a possible collapse of the beautiful, but unstable, cliffs. In recent years, the sea has taken away the sand, but the storms that restore it before the beginning of summer have been lacking.
The Chamber of Lagoa, as revealed by its president in an interview with Sul Informação, has “pressured the Portuguese Environment Agency”, in order to equate the feedback of this sand. “Our beaches are all nestled between cliffs, which gives them their unique beauty. But this also brings us some problems and security issues, which we need to think about and resolve», concluded the mayor of Lagos.
Photos: Elisabete Rodrigues | Sul Informação
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