Benidorm strengthens cleaning, lifeguard, and beach security services before Easter

Benidorm's beaches are now ready for the start of Easter, the first major holiday season of the year, which, starting this weekend, will bring thousands of tourists to the city to enjoy the festive season. The Councilor for Beaches, Mónica Gómez, announced today that the City Council and the beach management body have designed a special cleaning, lifeguard, and security plan for the beaches for this important tourist event. She announced that "as usual, all these services will be reinforced to accommodate the expected occupancy of our beaches during these holidays."

Mónica Gómez emphasized that "Benidorm's beaches are among the few on the Spanish coast that have lifeguard and cleaning services twelve months a year; these services are increased or reinforced during Easter and the summer to meet the high demand that always occurs during these two peak seasons." Specifically, regarding this first major tourist event of the year, the special operation will cover the dates from April 12th to 27th, when school holidays and public holidays occur in the different autonomous communities of our country, and with particular emphasis on the period from April 17th to 21st, when public holidays coincide in all regions.

In the case of rescue and lifeguarding, the service will extend its hours and will operate between 10:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., with five lifeguards in Poniente, another five in Levante, and one in Mal Pas. In addition, there will be two ambulances exclusively for the beaches, one in Levante and one in Poniente, each staffed by a nurse and an emergency technician, as well as an emergency first aid station staffed by nursing staff. This operation will be supported by a boat on the water equipped with a lifeguard and a skipper; and on land by a coordinator and a beach manager.

Also during Easter, the city's three accessible beach areas will be operational, located on Calle Murcia (Levante), in Elche Park, and in La Cala, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., to facilitate swimming for people with mobility issues. There will be two lifeguards in each of these areas, as detailed by Councilor Mónica Gómez.

Regarding security, Benidorm City Council will also reinforce police presence on the beaches and surrounding areas during the indicated dates, with fourteen additional officers daily, distributed across different shifts, who will join the regular staff to reinforce control and surveillance. Specifically, there will be four additional officers on the 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. shift; one officer and three officers on the 6:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. shift; and one officer and five officers on the night shift, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., who will be deployed between Thursday, April 17, and Monday, April 21.

In addition, the Local Police boat will be operational, complementing the work also carried out by the company that holds the concession for the comprehensive management of the beaches. There will always be a patrol car in Levante and another in Poniente. In addition to all of this, the National Police Force will also have reinforcements planned for these same dates.

Regarding the cleaning service, human resources will be increased to 20 personnel, as will the frequency of manual cleaning, introducing afternoon, evening, and pelican boat shifts. Thus, there will be three manual cleaning shifts on the three beaches: morning, afternoon, and evening, with a total of eleven, two, and six workers, respectively. In addition to this operation, mechanical cleaning with tractors and sieves will be carried out entirely at night, between 9:00 p.m. and 4:20 a.m., involving four additional workers.

The councillor noted that all of the aforementioned additional services aim to "guarantee the safety of residents and tourists, reinforcing attention at strategic points and ensuring a rapid response to any emergency." She hoped that activity on the beaches during these days "will proceed normally, without incident, allowing all users to enjoy our most precious asset, the beaches," according to Mónica Gómez.

Improvement works

Finally, the Councilor for Beaches noted that during the off-season, "taking advantage of the time when there are fewer people on the beaches, various maintenance and improvement projects have been carried out at numerous locations, as well as the traditional intensive cleaning of the sandbanks" and other actions to improve the condition and appearance of our coastline.

Among these, she indicated, are the movement and lowering of sand in areas with high accumulation. In addition, the walkways have been lengthened; the Lavapiés beach has been cleaned, disinfected, and painted; lifeguard huts have been painted and adapted; and maintenance pruning of oases in Levante and Poniente has been carried out. Likewise, Mónica Gómez pointed out that "at the City Council, we continue to expand and encourage beach item recycling among users," which was implemented last summer in Levante, for which "a new point has been installed in Elche Park to facilitate the deposit and circulation of items such as umbrellas, mats, buckets, shovels, chairs, and other items, which can be used by other users."