AARHUS: The planned 43-hectare expansion of the Port of Aarhus is now also being stopped politically. In a press release from Aarhus Municipality, the parties behind the expansion announced that the project will be put on hold "for a number of years".
Instead, it will be up to a new city council after the municipal elections next year to decide whether the project should be resumed. The expansion of the port has been in the works for many years, but was stopped by the Planning Appeals Board at the end of May.
The board upheld an appeal case, as "the minimum requirements of the Environmental Assessment Act for an environmental report have not been met", it said at the time. At the same time, the assessment suffered from a "significant legal deficiency". That decision is final and cannot be appealed to another administrative authority.
Subsequently, the parties in Aarhus City Council announced that an external investigation would uncover what had gone wrong in the municipality's work on the expansion. Here it was stated that the municipality still had plans to expand the port, and therefore the local plan should be revisited.
While the port expansion has been put on hold for now, the parties will instead focus fully on the Aarhus ReWater project. It is a modern wastewater treatment plant that is planned to replace the wastewater treatment plants in Marselisborg, Viby and Åby, respectively. The intention is to protect the aquatic environment in lakes, streams, waterways and the Aarhus Bay by ensuring clean wastewater in Aarhus.
- ReWater is crucial for a cleaner aquatic environment, it removes odor nuisances, and it significantly reduces the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and CO2 emissions, the parties further state.
- The plant is a central element in the green transition in Aarhus and in achieving our climate goals, and we therefore want the project to be realized independently of the port expansion.
With a heavy heart
At a press conference on Wednesday morning at Aarhus City Hall, Mayor Jacob Bundsgaard (S) said that it is with "a slightly heavy heart" that the conciliation group is now stopping the project.
- There is no doubt that the fact that we do not carry out a port expansion will affect the competitiveness of the Port of Aarhus in competition with both other Danish ports and international ports, says the mayor.
The plan to expand the port had been underway since 2018. The expansion was adopted in a local plan in June 2023.
It has been met with local resistance along the way, rooted in fears that the port expansion will affect the climate, the view of Aarhus Bay and the marine environment.
/ritzau/
Updated 11.02 with information from the press conference.
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