Jens Andersen is co-author of the book "Hanstholm - The Dream of a Port". He is also a museum curator at Bunkermuseum Hanstholm and has been in the city since 2001, and as a historian and archaeologist he has followed both the port's current and historical development.
Hanstholm Port has become municipal from 1 January 2023, and the time of self-government is over. This has happened because of an overdraft of 63 million DKK, which had to be repaid. There is a debt of 630 million DKK for the port expansion. This has meant that Thisted Municipality's budget for 2023 had to be reopened. But even though the municipality already owned the port last year, the awareness of ownership is now clearer in the consciousness.
- When you meet, people often say: "Congratulations, you have become a port owner", says Jens Andersen, about something you often hear when the inhabitants of the island meet.
The expansion of the port has temporarily left a new port but also a void.
- The hinterland area has not been developed with port-related companies, even though the expansion has been underway for a long time. So now there is the great sandy desert, where sand blows when the wind is right, says Jens Andersen and notes:
- In the last 10-15 years, it has been as if all the ports have to be expanded.
Now the new port is ready for more business activity.
- In Hanstholm, fishing is not dead, even though it has limited development. Now we are ready for freight and energy too, says Jens Andersen.
The ferries disappeared
Until the end of the zeros, it was possible to travel north by ferry from Hanstholm, but that came to an abrupt end.
- Until 2008, there were three ferry routes to Egersund and Stavanger in Norway and the Faroe Islands. And there was a catamaran to Kristiansand. All connections disappeared in the autumn of 2008. You could feel it psychologically, especially in the Hanstholm Center and especially at the bakery. Here at the museum, we couldn't feel it in the number of visitors, he says.
Jens Andersen is also in no doubt about why ferry traffic stopped.
- Here we were particularly missing the motorway, he says.
However, it is necessary that there is new development for Hanstholm.
- I can only hope that the port gets going. It is a prerequisite for there being a future here, says Jens Andersen.
The port as a tourist attraction has stopped
While work is being done to get freight and energy production going at the port, another activity has been focused on in the period of almost two years until May 2022, when the director was named Nils Skeby.
- In recent years, they have tried to make the port a tourist attraction. But it has stalled since Nils Skeby left. He was determined to start projects, otherwise the port would have been closed in on itself and only addressed the businesses, says Jens Andersen.
One project that the port started included two alternative businesses that have caused quite a bit of debate locally. There was a combined hairdresser and cafe in addition to a surfer container. But now both will no longer be at the port.
- Zappa Zappa was a combined hairdresser and cafe with old furniture and pallet furniture on an outdoor terrace. And then there was a surfer container. The surfers have helped create development here. It gave the city a slightly quirky look, and it was a fun place to come, says Jens Andersen.
That way of creating activity is over for now, though.
- These are absurd cases, and it is completely incomprehensible, although of course there is a planning law that must be followed. But there is something called an exemption. I could understand it if there was a furious development at the port, he says.
In Hanstholm there is an approach to making things successful.
- "We'll figure it out" has long been what they have said in Hanstholm. The port has been quite busy, for example, residential buildings in the port were demolished. In the zeros it was a German signal station, explains Jens Andersen, who is sad to have lost the historic building from the occupation period.
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