KERTEMINDE: By mistake, a report from October last year, prepared by the Port of Odense's consultant, the engineering company Sweco, has been misfiled, and therefore the politicians in Kerteminde have not seen it until now. This is reported by Fyens Stiftstidende, which discovered the report through a request for access to documents.
When the newspaper contacted the municipality's politicians about the report, it turned out that no one knew anything about it.
- I am shocked and deeply surprised that we have not been informed politically about this report. The port expansion is a very big deal for Kerteminde Municipality, said Alex Haurand (SF), and neither the former nor the current mayor knows about the existence of the report, they tell the local newspaper.
In the report, the engineers emphasize that if the port expansion is carried out, it will not happen because the project has been assessed as environmentally sound, but because the politicians choose to deviate from the protection of Odense Fjord.
The port expansion may also end up eliminating all effects of the green tripartite for many years to come, the report estimates, writes Fyens Stiftstidende.
A lengthy case
The case regarding a possible expansion of the Port of Odense in Kerteminde is a lengthy case. Most recently, a narrow majority of the city council in Kerteminde decided at the beginning of December last year to allow work on a possible expansion of the Port of Odense to continue, although under new and stricter conditions than before. It is a decision that was reportedly made without the politicians having knowledge of the report.
The conditions are that the expansion must not worsen traffic in Munkebo, damage nature and the marine environment, or have negative consequences for Munkebo School or the living conditions of the citizens. The municipality's finances and the need for new infrastructure must also be fully mapped out.
If the engineers' conclusions in the report are to be taken at face value, it will be difficult to expand the port without breaking at least one of the politicians' conditions, namely that the port expansion must not harm nature and the marine environment.
Narrow majority holds firm
A larger opposition group to the port expansion in the city council gathered at the end of January, where the politicians agreed to continue to say no to the project.
However, the group is still outnumbered and consists of the Radical Left, the Unity List, the SF, the Danish People's Party and Lars Hansborg-Sørensen from the Social Democrats.
The majority in favor of the port expansion consists of the mayoral party The Conservatives, the Social Democrats, with the exception of Lars Hansborg-Sørensen, and the Liberal Party, which just happens to have a majority in the matter with 13 out of the city council's 25 seats.
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