Coastal mayors want even more commerce on the beach

Never before have so many beach bars been on the Belgian coast. The rules are ten years old and coastal mayors are lobbying today for further relaxation, although they are not getting along among themselves. Several seaside resorts are all pushing the limits of what is allowed. According to the nature and environmental movement, the beach really is full.

“We are far from waiting for a relaxation of the rules,” says Bart Vanwildemeersch of the West Flanders Environmental Federation (WMF). “Any relaxation is a weakening of what is already weak. Beach clubs and bars want to expand their concessions and pave more. The pressure for additional year-round recreation is enormous on Belgium’s beaches. But many of those beach clubs and bars are in or adjacent to transitional areas. In fact, that is already an incision on nature, but there is hardly any enforcement.”

In Knokke-Heist, beach bar owners pioneered the sale of drinks with the rental of their booths, chairs and umbrellas in the late 1990s. The recipe proved successful: meanwhile, more than seventy beach bars are open, spread over nine of the ten coastal municipalities, each with their own private terraces. More than 300,000 square meters of beach and embankment are under concession for all kinds of rentals.

Up to half of the beach in the centers of Belgian seaside towns is commercialized. Scattered along the coastline are more than 10,000 cabins, next to each other every three meters.

Beach tourism is mainly concentrated in the centers of barely 67 kilometers of coastline, on a beach no more than 500 meters wide. Yet only a fifth of that area is "high beach. That is the “dry beach” between high tide line and dike or dune where commercial exploitations are possible.

Discussion of rules

Ten years ago, the provincial spatial implementation plan (PRUP) Beach and Dike detailed for each seaside resort what could and especially could not be done. Spacing rules gave proprietors exceptionally more options during the corona crisis. At a preparatory meeting of the previous Consultation of Coastal Mayors, a semi-annual meeting, the question of additional possibilities on the beach sounded.

This requires an amendment to the PRUP. “Why shouldn’t a certain stretch of beach be temporarily occupied in winter,” said Blankenberge Mayor Bjorn Prasse (Open Vld). “Some rules, such as certain surface areas within the beach areas, are also not in line with what is workable.”

According to Mayor of De Panne Bram Degrieck (The Plan-B), the PRUP was indeed not made for activities in winter. “The time when shopkeepers boarded up windows in winter is long gone. The beach should be at least as attractive in summer as in winter. That’s why we support the call for adjustments.”

That those regulations are outdated here and there was observed by everyone in practice, Mayor Prasse believes. “But everyone deals with it pragmatically, because there is not only the letter of the law, there is also such a thing as the spirit of the law. Regulations must always be interpreted, both when granting permits and when checking compliance.”

An initiative to revise the PRUP does lie with the provincial government. For now, the deputation is holding off. Mayor Prasse thinks a revision would be useful: “All spatial plans have an expiration date. If you see that in practice, with all the best intentions, the rules are not workable, then they need to be tinkered with.”