Xàbia set a capacity limit and access control in its two most famous coves. The problem is that nobody wants to take care of it

In Xàbia they live around 30,000 people. At least according to the INE data, which only formally registered neighbors in the town. If we talk about the summer months and include visitors in the equation, the thing changes and that figure It multiplies exponentially. And it is understandable. Xábia is known for its landscapes, its gastronomy and beaches and coves as portitxol or grenadella. The problem is that this attractive threatens to be a collapse condemnation.

One that this year promises Leave images of access to saturated sand.

The beaches, face and cross. Having a beach near home in summer is a blessing. And an ordeal. Almost a year ago the residents of O Hío, in Cangas, a town in the Baixas Rías very popular for their sand, protest tourist that suffers every summer. To make clear their position on a Sunday they began to cross a village zebra crossing for minutes and minutes, blocking the traffic of access to the beach area.

“The neighbors have the right to live. It is an avalanche of cars that not only contaminates, but affects everyone’s life because they park where they want,” regretted A neighbor. The Baixas Rías are not the only ones who deal with tourists in search of paradisiacal beaches. At the other end of the Peninsula, in Xàbia, the coves also attract thousands of vacationers, many of them aboard cars, which has forced the town to take action To control your transfer.

Objective: Ordered beaches. Does Just a year The Alicante municipality presented a special device to control access to two of its most popular coves, the GRANADELLA and the Portitxolwith vigilantes in charge of supervising the passage and a regulated parking system in the street. The idea was simple: from June 1 to 21 (the “middle season”) the accesses were controlled only on weekends; From 21 that supervision became daily until September 13 and then the surveillance focused again on Saturdays and Sundays until October.

It was not the only measure. Alicante Plaza Precise That in June 2024 the parking lot in PICT Tort began to be regulated, in the Cala Granadella, and La Barraca (Cala Portitxol). To avoid vehicle collapse, the City Council He chose to resort to a system with “barriers and payment”, which allowed visitors to park for almost all day (from 9 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.) paying nine euros for each vehicle. Once the parking lot was filled, the operators blocked access with barriers.

“Avoid bottling”. And even City Hall He installed panels Informative on access roads to the coves so that drivers could know almost in real time the availability of parking spaces in Granadella and Portitxol. “The system tries to prevent the bathers from reaching the point where the control barrier is located and the parking lot is around,” I clarified The councilor of beaches. The idea was that these bathers could “opt for another beach and avoid bottling.”

And arrived (almost) the summer of 2025. At the doors of 2025 Xàbia now meets a challenge, according to He revealed yesterday Levante-El Mercantil Valenciano. The newspaper ensures that the contest launched by the local government to take care of the control of access to Granadella and Portitxol seems to have not aroused the interest of any company. Last Monday the envelopes of the candidates opened and the executive discovered that no company had been presented. The exploitation of the service would not even attract the firm that assumed it in recent years.

At the end of May Levant He already warned that Xàbia was approaching summer with the beaches without beaconing, anchoring buoys or supervision of access to the beaches. The tender of the surveillance, control and safety service in the coves of the town, which among other things aims to avoid the collapse of cars in Granadella and the Portitxol, would have been launched for a extendable year and a budget of almost 104,000 euros. Now, Clarify the newspaperthat hired has been deserted, the file has been filed and the coves face an uncertain horizon.

“There are those who threaten to run over us”. The alleged disinterest in companies comes after drivers will alert last year of the encounters that live in the coves with choleric visitors. One of them admitted in August 2024 to Levante-El Mercantil Having met bathers who, when they find out that they cannot park in the area, take them with the workers, those who threaten or even love to run over.

Without barriers or control, parking on the roads to Granadalla and the barrack also suppose a problem. When parking where they should not, cars complicate traffic and even reach hinder the step of firefighters and ambulances. In fact the sands already They have left saturation scenes.

Images | Martin_vmorris (Flickr) 1 and 2

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