Pla Litoral

Reconquering the city’s coastal areas as a quality public space that is open to and enjoyed by all is one of the main ideas of the plan. For this to be possible, public spaces need to meet basic requirements of comfort, suitability and safety. The diagnosis identified the areas where action is needed in this regard and this has been transferred into specific projects and actions.

The services currently offered along the coastline respond to needs that have changed or have been surpassed. In many cases, the excessive over-use of spaces has led to problems of coexistence. The plan reconsiders the services offered in order to adapt them both to the needs of the people of the city and to the requirements of environmental sustainability, while avoiding exceeding the capacity of the various spatial areas.

The Barcelona Municipal Charter and the City Council’s Regulations on Citizen Participation show a firm will to strengthen active democracy, reinforcing collaborative and cooperative practices between the City Council, the association movement and social stakeholders in order to achieve progress and cohesion. It is this willingness that leads to instruments such as the civic management of municipal competences for activities and services that can be managed indirectly.

If objectives aimed at social equity and environmental sustainability are to be pursued, it is necessary to promote activities and services that are accessible on foot or by bicycle and for which it is not necessary to take a car. They promote physical health and personal relationships, contribute to the local economy and social responsibility, and are the best option from an environmental point of view.

The diagnosis shows that not all areas are equally accessible by public transport. The plan works to make this accessibility equal and to guarantee connectivity along the entire seafront, from river to river. In addition, it promotes active modes of transport (cycling and walking) and considers improving the supply of public transport along the coast.

For a city like Barcelona to be a maritime city in the fullest sense of the term, it is necessary for residents – especially those living in the coastal neighbourhoods – to have easy access to the sea, and not just through the beaches. Being able to reach the sea helps them to make it their own, value it and want to preserve it.

In order for nautical sports to become a popular activity among residents along the Barcelona coastline, an effective range of training courses is needed. At an educational level, the Barcelona Sailing Institute and the UPC’s Faculty of Sailing already exist, but they need to be promoted even more. Furthermore, it is necessary to coordinate the promotion and encouragement of other training activities that take place on the coastline in order to highlight the uniqueness of each facility and to promote nautical activities, thus generating benefits for the public and for each facility in particular.

Barcelona has the potential to become a benchmark city in sustainable marine sciences and technologies. To achieve this, it is necessary to support research, development and innovation institutions and centres working in the different areas of knowledge that all have the sea as a common denominator, and to create the conditions to generate new synergies between them.

The blue economy covers the productive activities and services that are more specific to the coastline (they need the sea to be carried out). The diagnosis shows that these are sectors that generate greater multiplier effects than other economic activities established along the Barcelona coastline. Promoting new social and solidarity economy initiatives related to the blue economy would generate more inclusive, quality employment, as well as helping to promote seafaring trades, recover the historical memory of coastal neighbourhoods, and disseminate and promote maritime culture.

The coastline is an area that brings together activities that have an environmental impact and bother residents. Action is needed to reduce polluting emissions into the air and water and the generation of waste in order to improve the quality of life of the city’s inhabitants and the health of the environment in general.

The city is currently undergoing a widespread process to green up spaces, and the coastline should not be an exception. The city’s coastline offers a very important opportunity as an area for enjoyment, peace and quiet, relaxation, education, knowledge, etc. Moreover, it can form a key environmental link with large natural areas around the urban landscape, such as the estuaries of the Besòs and Llobregat rivers, and between the green spaces of the city itself.

Urban resilience is the ability of cities to prevent or, where inevitable, minimise the impact of exceptional emergency situations and recover as quickly as possible. The city’s coastline must be able to cope resiliently with the different natural and industrial risks to which it is exposed, and this criterion must govern all the actions that can be designed there, especially along the seafront.

Barcelona’s coastline, and especially the beach area, is one of the city’s biggest recreational areas. Sport is present in all coastal areas and has become one of the great structuring elements of the seafront. The coastline has the potential to offer linear circuits with great landscapes and environmental value that are ideal for the practice of sailing, swimming, cycling, skating or running.

The city’s coastline is a vast territory in which a multitude of public and private agents intervene. In recent years, it has become an area of increasingly intense public use. It is therefore not unusual for situations and tensions to arise between stakeholders with conflicting interests, which are difficult to manage with the mechanisms available today. It is for this reason that it is necessary to create and organise new spaces for cross-cutting debate between all the social groups and coastal stakeholders involved, where all concerns and opinions can be openly discussed and a positive response can be given.

New governance for the coastline is needed to combine the conservation of its environmental values and the social and economic progress of its inhabitants. Its design must ensure close and effective coordination between the agents and public institutions with responsibilities in relevant areas, including beaches and ports, and must guarantee citizen participation in the development and decision-making processes.