Porto to remove Praia do Ourigo beach bar ruins by end of May

The derelict beach bar at Praia do Ourigo in Porto, a ruin highlighted in a technical report by the Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente (APA), will be removed by the end of the month, the mayor has said.

Works to remove the Praia do Ourigo beach bar

Pedro Duarte (PSD/CDS-PP/IL) said the council will step in to resolve a long-running process and begin the works needed to demolish and clear the structure.

"We are going to intervene, for example, at Praia do Ourigo. There is a bar there, [a process] that has been dragging on for years and years. And we, by the end of this month of May, are going to start the works so that we can demolish and remove what we have there at Praia do Origo," he said.

Duarte was speaking on Monday evening at the municipal assembly during a session devoted to reviewing six months in office, as he listed projects and initiatives linked to the municipality’s coastal strip.

Coastal frontage plans and the Edifício Transparente

In that context, he returned to the Edifício Transparente, built by the sea as part of Porto 2001 – European Capital of Culture, where a partial demolition has been under discussion.

"On the seafront, the case of the Edifício Transparente seems obvious to me. It is one of those cases that, perhaps, would have been more comfortable to let run on, as it has been left over the last few years, even decades, but we are finally going to intervene with courage," said Pedro Duarte.

APA technical report and timing before summer

Regarding the Praia do Ourigo bar, an APA source told Lusa on 18 March that the plan to remove those structures-requiring demolition of what is installed there and subsequent clean-up-would take place before the summer.

That intervention is set out in the technical report presented by the agency on 11 March, and it is the only one identified for the municipality of Porto, with which the APA has been "fully co-ordinated".

The ruins of a bar at Praia do Ourigo are the only structure in Porto listed in the report, which covers incidents along the coastal strip of mainland Portugal between October 2025 and the first days of March, compiling the effects of severe weather and successive storms across the country.