Sliema Local Council has announced the start of beach patrols along Sliema’s coastline, with patrols set to operate every weekend until the end of summer.
According to the Council, the initiative is aimed at keeping beaches cleaner, safer and more pleasant for both residents and visitors during the busy summer period.
The patrols will focus primarily on education and prevention, rather than enforcement alone.
Patrol staff will:
- Remind beach users not to leave litter behind.
- Encourage people having BBQs to clean the area properly and take their rubbish with them.
- Monitor beach areas for illegal activity or serious rowdy behaviour.
- Report serious incidents to the relevant authorities where necessary.
- Encourage greater respect for public spaces, nearby residents and other beach users.
The initiative is a welcome step, particularly during the peak summer months when Sliema’s rocky beaches and coastline attract large numbers of residents, tourists and groups gathering throughout the day and into the evening.
However, one question remains: why are the patrols limited to weekends?
During summer, Sliema’s beaches are not only heavily used on Saturdays and Sundays. Popular swimming areas can be extremely busy every day of the week, particularly throughout July and August, with people swimming, sunbathing, gathering for drinks and holding BBQs well into the evening.
Problems such as littering, abandoned food and drink containers, BBQ waste, excessive noise and antisocial behaviour are also not necessarily restricted to weekends.
If the purpose of the initiative is prevention and education, there may be a strong case for extending at least some patrol coverage to weekday afternoons and evenings, particularly at known hotspots and during the busiest periods of summer.
Regular visibility could also help reinforce the message that keeping the coastline clean is an everyday responsibility, rather than something that is monitored only at weekends.
The Council has stressed that the objective is to encourage people to take greater responsibility for the public spaces they use. That approach is positive, but residents may reasonably ask whether weekend-only patrols will be enough to address problems occurring throughout the week.
It would therefore be useful for the Council to clarify whether the weekend patrols are an initial trial, whether weekday coverage may follow, and how the effectiveness of the initiative will be measured by the end of summer.
A cleaner and safer Sliema coastline benefits everyone, but during the height of summer, the pressure on Sliema’s beaches does not stop on Monday morning.
Source: Sliema Local Council