Santiago do Cacem, Setubal, Portugal, Aug. 6, 2025 (Lusa) - Inspections of beaches and beach concessions in the Algarve will continue until the end of August and the results will be presented in the first or second week of September, the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) announced on Wednesday.
The inspections "will continue until the end of August and we want to present the report with the results, as we did [with Grândola], sometime between the first and second week of September," said APA president José Pimenta Machado today in statements to the Lusa news agency.
On Tuesday, the Minister for the Environment and Energy (MAEN), Maria da Graça Carvalho, announced that the APA, together with the National Maritime Authority (AMN), had begun an inspection in the Algarve of access to beaches and compliance with public service by concessionaires.
“It is a normal inspection, as was done between Tróia and Melides [on the Alentejo coast]. In this case, it will be on the Algarve coast. They will start in Sotavento, (eastern Algarve) Monte Gordo, Praia Verde,” said Maria da Graça Carvalho, when asked about the issue during a press conference in Lisbon on sustainability programmes.
The minister added that, in the case of the Algarve, the complaints are mainly related to “access conditions” to toilets and changing rooms and not so much to restrictions on access to beaches.
Contacted today by Lusa, the president of the APA said that on Tuesday the action began “with preparatory coordination work” with all the entities involved, which should “go into the field” only on Thursday.
“Obviously, the Algarve is not the same size [as the Grândola coast], but we have some situations that concern us and that have already been identified,” he explained.
These situations, he added, will be given “particular attention”
According to Pimenta Machado, who says he will “personally monitor” one of these operations, next Wednesday the APA will give priority to access to beaches and beach concessions.
“We are already aware of some situations that are not compliant: access to changing rooms and toilets is within the commercial area, [with] some restrictions that people may feel,” he explained.
According to the official, it is necessary to ensure that access to changing rooms and toilets is “always outside so that people feel free to use” these facilities.
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Lusa
