The Town Council is going to approve new municipal regulations before the arrival of the summer, concerning the presence of camper vans in the town. But it doesn’t mean that they want to get rid of them, but rather find an official parking area for them.
“They don’t bother us as they are a form of tourism that interests us, but their presence has to be put into order,” said the Mayor, Gonzalo Fernández Pulido.
Now that it is Spring, the habitual, non-official parking field behind Chiringuito Bahía, already has about half a dozen camper vans parked, or better said, ‘camped.’ The difference, by the way between being parked and being camped is a subtle one: just having the steps down or even one of the main windows open, means the vehicle is camped and not merely parked.
As for the ones parked below the castle on the said field, there is washing hanging out to dry, so there is little doubt about them being parked or camped. The said field belongs to the Town Hall, by the way.
The main thing that the Mayor wants to sort out is sewage and an electricity supply, because at the moment, it’s anybody’s guess where the toilets are emptied.
Right now there are just a handful, but in full summer, Salobreña will be coping with a couple of hundred of these vehicles.
Furthermore the said land is really summer parking for cars; not campers.
The Town Hall will charge a symbolic rate for being able to park in the new camping area, giving the campers a sewage system.
Salobreña doesn’t have a private campsite. When the Seaside Gazette interviewed the previous Mayor, he pointed this out, saying that they would be over the moon if somebody actually decided to open one in the municipality.
With the new Mayor, things haven’t changed in that aspect, in fact, if a private enterprise considers setting up a campsite, the Town Hall might well provide publicly owned land, because, as the Mayor emphasises, there is a big demand for such an installation.
In the meantime, Salobreña has a completely different situation to its neighbours, Almuñécar and Motril, where camper vans are forbidden from ‘parking,’ precisely because it damages local campsites who are paying taxes to operate.
Finally, and back to the present situation, as the Spanish say, O todos Moros o Cristianos, which means, everybody gets treated the same. So, if a villager cannot pitch a tent in front of his house, then the camper van people can’t either, and that goes for barbecues, too.
Yes, you can park up, put your steps down, take out a table and chairs, but you cannot start lighting campfires, etc.
Anyway, lets see what the new municipal regulations come up with.
