La Casería beach, San Fernando, Cádiz, 2009. Towers of the Casería beach could be demolished because of an alleged illegality in the planning permission.

In Cadiz, as well as in the neighboring town of Huelva, urban planning and infrastructure have been primed in the last decade with the stretches of coast that had survived relatively isolated from the construction boom.

Sadly, during the last decade the Cadiz coast has starred a long list of irregularities, urban sprawl over its territory associated in most of cases with urban corruption. For instance, Chiclana, in 2007, overpassed Marbella in number of illegal housing construction (40,000). In Chipiona, the former mayor and three council members were charged with illegal licensing of public land.

Urban pressure on the Protected Natural Area of the Bay of Cadiz has shattered many of its wetlands. Municipalities such as Puerto de Santa Maria accumulate dozens of lawsuits against outlawed developments but, despite the lawsuit, the town has continued building development projects. Only in 2007, 28,000 new homes were projected. Furthermore, and in this bay, in 2009 the Supreme Court stopped the destruction of the Las Aletas marshes
in Puerto Real, a project which had the approval of the State Board and the region of Andalucía, and Greenpeace began to report in 2006. That same year, the City of San Fernando allowed the construction of three 16-storey towers on La Caseria beach.

Barbate has been urbanizing the Cape Trafalgar for years and in 2009 the City Council of Vejer has resumed its historic plan to destroy El Palmar coast with the construction of a large resort. Between Tarifa and Zahara de los Atunes, year after year, coastal dunes and pine forests are getting destroyed, ruining large areas of virgin coast. The Atlanterra beach, in Zahara, has been welcoming more and more constructions. Indeed, in 2002 the Grand Atlanterra Hotel was demolished, fact that the former Minister of Environment, Jaume Matas, considered a milestone in the recovery of areas of maritime-terrestrial public domain. However, as Greenpeace denounced a decade ago, this measure was totally ineffective, since in 2006, 2,000 new homes and a golf course were projected in this beach.

In 2008, the Port Authority of Algeciras Bay announced plans to expand the existing port of Tarifa to accommodate all the passenger ships of the nearby port of Algeciras. The expansion will irreversibly affect Natural Park of the Gibraltar Strait.

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