Benalmadena Progresses Coastal Path with Carvajal Works Benalmádena moves ahead with plans to transform an unused stretch at Carvajal beach into a modern seaside promenade linked to the provincial coastal path. A Missing Link in the Coastal Chain Diggers and surveyors are already on site at Carvajal beach, where Benalmádena town hall has pushed forward tenders for a stretch of promenade that has been missing from the province's coastal walkway for years. The works cover 435 metres of shoreline between the Kalifato beach area and Avenida del Sol, turning what has long been an uneven dirt track into a paved, step-free path fit for walkers, joggers and anyone pushing a buggy or wheelchair along the seafront. Anyone who has tried to walk this section on a Sunday morning will recognise the problem the council is trying to solve. The route currently forces pedestrians onto loose sand or gravel, awkward for older residents and near impossible for beach-cleaning vehicles or emergency crews trying to reach the water quickly. The €318,000 project addresses both issues at once: a smooth surface for foot traffic and reinforced ramps built to carry maintenance and rescue vehicles without churning up the ground each time they're used. What the Money Buys The budget, modest by infrastructure standards, has been allocated specifically for this stretch rather than the wider network, which suggests the council is treating Carvajal as a self-contained, deliverable phase rather than waiting for a single mega-project to cover the whole coastline. Engineers have designed the promenade to cope with the battering that any structure this close to the Mediterranean inevitably takes — salt spray, storm surges and the shifting sand that undermines poorly built paths within a few winters. Alongside the paving, native coastal planting is being worked into the embankment, partly to stabilise the ground and partly to keep the strip looking like a beach rather than a car park. For homeowners and long-term expats in the Carvajal and Torrequebrada areas, the practical upshot is straightforward: better access to the beach on foot, safer conditions for evening walks, and — eventually — a direct pedestrian link into Fuengirola without having to detour onto pavements alongside traffic. For holiday visitors, it means one more uninterrupted section of walkable coast, which matters more than it sounds when you're trying to get from a hotel in eastern Benalmádena to the restaurants and chiringuitos further along the sand. Part of a Bigger Provincial Plan This isn't a standalone scheme dreamed up in isolation. The Carvajal works sit within a broader coastal connectivity programme backed by provincial funding, the long-term goal of which is a continuous pedestrian route running along the entire coastline of the province. Benalmádena's stretch has been one of the gaps in that chain, and closing it brings the town a step closer to matching neighbouring municipalities that already have unbroken seafront paths. Council technical departments are already looking beyond Carvajal. Plans under review include a more ambitious — and structurally trickier — elevated walkway linking Torrequebrada and La Viborilla, an area where cliffs and rocky terrain have historically made a conventional promenade impractical. That project remains at the planning stage rather than under tender, reflecting the greater engineering challenge of building a raised walkway over difficult ground rather than simply resurfacing an existing path. Further down the coast, planners are also examining improvements around Puerto Marina, focusing on viewpoints and pedestrian connections that would tie the marina more closely into the same network. None of this has reached the tender stage yet, but it signals that Carvajal is intended as the first visible piece of a much longer-term programme rather than an isolated repair job. What Comes Next For residents watching diggers move along Carvajal beach this season, the timeline that matters most is the completion of this 435-metre stretch, which will finally give eastern Benalmádena a proper paved connection towards Fuengirola. The Torrequebrada-La Viborilla walkway and the Puerto Marina works remain further off, tied to technical review rather than construction schedules. Together, though, they map out where the town's coastal path network is heading over the coming years — one funded, tendered section at a time, rather than a single grand unveiling.