Grandola, Setubal, Portugal, Aug. 6, 2025 (Lusa) - The president of the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), José Pimenta Machado, revealed on Wednesday that some irregularities detected during inspections of access to the beaches of Grândola have been corrected and assured that the agency will maintain “close surveillance” of the area.
Speaking to the Lusa news agency, in a review of the inspection of the coastline between Tróia and Melides, in the district of Grândola, Setúbal, carried out in July, he stressed the importance of maintaining surveillance and monitoring along this coast.
“We always maintain close surveillance and monitoring. There was a certain amount of social unrest there, but now we are guaranteeing that universal value of the country, the result of a law passed by King Luís in 1804, which declared that beaches are public and universally accessible,” he said.
Pimenta Machado revealed that, about a month after the inspection, some of the identified irregularities were corrected, which allowed "social calm to be restored" in this area.
“There was a property development that, on its English website, [made reference] to private beaches. This was immediately removed, we notified the property developer and [the advertisement] was taken down,” he explained.
This work, he insisted, is done “continuously” to “assure the entire general public that the beaches are public and universally accessible”.
“Things are going well,” he assured, adding that the Environment Agency is in contact with “the developers of various tourist developments”, and that the environmental impact statement requires the construction of “accesses and parking lots” to serve the beaches.
The inspection of beach access, ordered by the minister for the environment, Maria Graça Carvalho, began on 1 July and the results were presented on the 9th of the same month.
The operation was carried out in conjunction with the Environment Agency, the national maritime authority and local entities, such as the Grândola Municipal Council, inspecting access to 22 beaches in the district, 18 of which are concessioned.
At the time, the authorities revealed that they had found eight beaches with unrestricted access, two with controlled access, eight with restricted access and one with no access, while three others were not equipped with infrastructure.
In an interview with TSF and Jornal de Notícias on Tuesday, the minister for the environment revealed that the infringements detected during inspections of beaches on the coast of Grândola "had immediate results", i.e. the anomalies were corrected by the tourist promoters.
When questioned today by Lusa about possible fines for offenders, the president of the Environment Agency reinforced the “good collaboration” that has existed with tourism promoters and the Grândola Municipal Council.
In addition to putting up signs "indicating access to beaches and parking areas" and warning of “public access” Pimenta Machado said that there are a number of planned interventions that will improve access to bathing areas.
“We have several projects underway to increase the number of accesses to beaches and parking areas, in a process that takes time, between projects, contracts and construction work, but I want to believe that by next year we will have everything in place,” he said.
Signs have been put up on the Tróia-Galé and Galé-Fontainhas beaches ‘explaining that access to the beach is public’ and that bathers ‘can move around freely’. On the latter beach, the APA and the local authority are going to create “good access, with a car park with 200 spaces, avoiding the need to cross the campsite”, he explained.
Work is also planned on “access to Duna Cinzenta beach” and the APA, together with the council, plans to create “two new bathing areas with good access to the beach” in the district, he revealed.
HYN/AYLS // AYLS
Lusa
