Spanish locals creating fake signs to stop Brits going on their beaches

Locals in Spain are attempting to take their beaches back from tourists with the help of fake signs warning them of all sorts of potential dangers.

Far from the pebble-covered beaches, cunning seagulls and grey skies of the English coastline, beaches abroad just hit different.

Ivan Dražić/Pexels

Brits love rushing to the golden sands to soak up the sun while on holiday, but it can't be fun for locals to see their favourite haunts flooded with tourists each summer.

The efforts Brits go through to reserve sunbeds prove there's very little that will get in the way of us making the most of hot weather, but some locals in Spain have decided to find out whether threats of jellyfish stings or being crushed by rocks will do the trick.

A protest group called Caterva has started putting up fake signs warning of the threats on beaches in Mallorca, with one reading: "Beware of dangerous jellyfish."

X/@Caterva_mnc

Other signs claim the beaches are closed to the public, or that beaches just 100 yards away would take almost three hours to get to.

Only people who can read Catalan would know the truth, as small print on the signs offers an explanation to locals.

"Come in. The danger is not of a landslide, it is of overcrowding," one reads.

After the posters popped up in the likes of Cala Morlanda, Cala Petita, Porto Cristo, Cala Murta, Cala Magraner and Cala Bóta, Caterva released a statement on the decision to display the signs on X (formerly known as Twitter).

X/@Caterva_mnc

They wrote (translated): "The usurpation of the coves is just another expression of how capitalism uses an economic activity like tourism, taken to the extreme, to dry out the territory and to extract the maximum surplus value from the workers."

The group has put the blame in part on business owners in the area, saying: “There are culprits and it is necessary to name them, such as the hoteliers or the Rafael Nadals who are as complicit as the Balearic Government.”

The group has also offered other locals the opportunity to put up posters of their own, writing: "If you want to use the images and print posters you just have to ask us and we will send them to you in good quality. Let's continue the fight!"

Obviously Caterva has been open about the fact the signs aren't real, but that doesn't mean tourists in Mallorca should ignore every warning sign they come across.

After all, it's not worth being hit by a falling rock if you choose to ignore a warning that's actually real.