For years, the cliff has been posing safety issues
Lagos Council has reached an agreement with the Portuguese Environmental Agency (APA) to tackle cliff erosion at Dona Ana beach.
For years, the cliff has been posing safety issues to beachgoers and nearby residents.
As the Resident reported in 2018, a road giving access to the Montana building, used by dozens of people every day near the beach, has been at risk of collapse due to the eroding cliff.
However, after years of complaints from locals, the council and APA have finally come to an agreement which will allow the local authority to act in APA’s stead.
The goal of the agreement was to grant the local council the “legal means to launch a tender” for a new project entitled ‘Dona Ana Beach Cliff Stabilisation and Montana Building Access Road Restoration’.”
Says the council, this model, which ensures “technical and institutional cooperation and the sharing of resources and knowledge, had already been used in previous phases of the process,” which helped carry out the geological and geotechnical study of the location and the creation of the execution project, which has received a thumbs up from APA.
The local council has described the agreement as “crucial”.
“It will allow us to move forward with the necessary work to stop, or at least slow down, the erosion of the cliff,” said the local council.
A controversial sand replenishment project was carried out at Dona Ana in 2015, to ensure beachgoers had enough space to sunbathe away from potentially dangerous rockfall areas.
But as the council points out, the instability of the cliff remains, making the new project “indispensable and urgent” in order to restore safety to the area.
The project will not only tackle the cliff’s erosion but also help restore access to the beach and “adopt urgent measures to minimise the negative visual impact of the entire area.”
Works will cost around €294,000 and will be fully covered by the local council, which plans to apply for community funding.
