Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

Another beach season comes to an end, this year with a record number of visitors. As many as 5.2 million people used the city’s beaches between 1 April and 25 September, some 200,000 more than past year. Medical assistance also rose by 15%.

The weekends were the most popular days for people to visit the beaches in Barcelona, with nearly two million users. The western beaches saw visitor numbers up by 14% compared to last year, while volumes at the eastern beaches dropped by 7%.

The growth in the number of users did not exceed the capacity the beaches, except for some occasional cases at the Barceloneta and Llevant beaches, but without leading to any situations posing a risk. Storms from the Northeast have led to a significant loss of sand at the beaches on the eastern side (Mar Bella, Nova Mar Bella and Llevant), given their orientation.

Regulated sport at the beaches to ensure coexistence

New measures were introduced this summer to regulate and order sports uses at the beaches. In all, visitors to the beaches installed over 10,500 temporary sports courts. Most of these were set up in the designated areas, although 16% were set up outside of these. In these circumstances, teams of staff at beaches worked in coordination with the City Police Beach Unit to intervene and get users to relocate to the designated areas.

Smoke-free beaches

Some 99% of people at the beaches did not smoke there this summer. The figures were provided by the Beach Information Service, which added that the initiative has been welcomed, with people rating it with a score of 7.88 out of 10. Even so, cigarette butts are still to be found along the city’s coast, mainly next to the seafront and infrastructures.

Purple point at the beaches

The purple point in the building for the Directorate for Beaches, located at the Bogatell groyne, opened during the celebrations for Sant Joan, acting in 2,000 cases that same night. Since then, the point has been opening during daytime hours all through the season, carrying out awareness tasks, prevention and assistance to combat sexist violence and LGBTI-phobia in the vicinity.

More bathers and more medical assistance

The number of users at the beaches also affected the volume of medical assistance and cases of people being taken to hospital. Even so, the number of rescue operations in the water and missing people was lower. As for the assisted bathing service, improvements were introduced which helped to slightly increase the number of people who used the service.

More space at the dog beach

The dog area at the Llevant beach gained an additional 20% of space this summer, but the high temperatures meant there were fewer visitors in all, with 12,560 dogs.