Alicante considers urban planning changes for tourist luggage storage

Alicante City Council has opened the door to modifying urban planning regulations in the future to address the irregular situation of luggage storage facilities for tourists. However, the municipal government warns that, in the meantime, it will comply with current regulations which prohibit opening this type of business outside of industrial areas.

Currently, Alicante city centre has around twenty luggage storage facilities, most of them self-service. At these businesses, tourists can book in advance online or pay on-site by credit card. Once a locker is reserved, with prices starting at approximately one euro per hour for the smallest units, users access it with a code that grants them entry to the facility and access to their individual locker.

This is a model that serves both customers of tourist apartments and hotels, who usually leave their accommodations at 11:00 a.m., and users of the Adif station, where there are no luggage lockers.

However, this activity is not included in the city’s General Plan, which dates back to 1987, leaving it in a kind of limbo. For now, the city council has addressed this by classifying these establishments as industrial activity. This classification means, in practice, that lockers cannot be located in the city centre, even though some businesses have been open for more than four years.

When asked about this issue, the spokesperson for the municipal executive, Cristina Cutanda, stated yesterday, Tuesday 15th September, that what Urban Planning does is comply with the regulations and if it needs to be reviewed in the future, it will be done, but the council will comply with the activity regulations.

Now, the Urban Planning Department has begun issuing the first closure orders, while business owners in the sector are demanding a way to regularise their situation. The closure orders mandate the immediate suspension of operations for luggage storage services due to lack of a licence or prior administrative authorisation to begin operations.