A sign is posted on the beach stopping access into the sea. | miquel a. cañellas

TW

The mayor of Palma, Jose Hila, has asked Madrid for a meeting with the Minister for Ecology to discuss speeding up the installation of a new sewage treatment plant in Palma in order to stop the beach sewage spills because hoteliers in Palma and the Playa de Palma have had enough.

The Palma and Playa de Palma hotel associations have written to the new mayor of Palma expressing their anger over the continual closures of the beaches at Can Pere Antoni and Ciudad Jardin due to sewage spills into the sea water every time it rains.

The beaches were closed twice back in May and again this week in the wake of storms which provoked sewage leaks and the closure of the beaches.

The problem has been going on for years and hoteliers are furious that nothing has been done to resolve the problem. The hotel associations have demanded immediate action and it appears that the mayor has responded.

“It’s a disgrace that every time it rains, we have the same old problem, especially in the peak of the summer season.

“We have received scores of complaints from guests and never-ending negative comments. It’s damaging Palma’s image and hampering all our efforts to establish Palma as a leading city destination, there are not many cities in Europe which have a beach just ten minutes walk from the centre and a short distance from scores of first class hotels,” the associations told the mayor in a joint statement.

The municipal water and refuse company Emaya is apparently already working on reducing 90 percent of the networks sewage leaks in Palma.