BRITISH Consul in Barcelona Lloyd Millen has urged Spain not to jump to conclusions about balcony fall deaths and injuries in Mallorca this summer, saying all those reported this year have been accidents.
Millen's patch covers Catalunya, Aragón, the Balearic Islands and the Pyrénéen country of Andorra, meaning his office deals with a high number of incidents involving young Brits on boozy holidays with groups of friends in party districts such as Magaluf and Palmanova – part of the town of Calvià, Mallorca – and in Ibiza.
Whenever a British holidaymaker is killed or badly injured in a fall from an apartment or hotel terrace, the Spanish media immediately refers to 'balconing' – a foolhardy stunt usually involving alcohol and peer pressure where victims attempt to jump from their balconies into the swimming pool below.
“This trend is over now. There are no cases of 'balconing' among young Brits these days,” Millen insists.
“The cases seen this year have been accidental falls, which is different; although it's true there have been a lot of such cases this summer.”
Falls reported in the press have all been onto pavements or internal courtyards with no pool, showing they cannot logically be the result of 'balconing'.
“Brits do not tend to live in flats with balconies and perhaps they are not used to them,” the Consul explains, adding that this is why the UK foreign office recommends tourists take extreme care when they visit holiday hotspots in Spain.
Cheap alcohol is also partly behind accidental falls: “If they go to the Punta Ballena strip, on a 300-metre strip there are 113 cashpoints. It's designed to get money out of people,” Millen says.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com