Rada H. Králové softened the conditions of the tender for the construction of the footbridge over the Elbe

Hradec Králové - The Hradec Králové Council has eased the conditions for the repeated competition for the construction of a footbridge over the Elbe near the Aldis Congress Center. No company applied for the first competition. The city hall believes that under less strict conditions, companies will apply. The conditions and the announcement of the tender will be definitively approved by the councilors at the meeting on April 30. This was communicated to the press today by city representatives. The project for the construction of the footbridge, estimated at 48 million CZK without VAT, has been in preparation since 2003.

The proposed footbridge is a slender structure made of concrete blocks connected by cables. According to Jiří Bláha (ODS), Deputy Mayor for Investments, this type of construction has been used in the Czech Republic so far only four times. In the last tender, the city required a reference for a footbridge of this type with a length of at least 60 meters, while so far, according to Bláha, only one such long footbridge has been built in the country.

"The requirement for the footbridge to be at least 60 meters long proved to be discriminatory," said Mayor Alexandr Hrabálek (for ODS). In the repeated tender, the requirement for the length of the footbridge should not be included. The new tender will also have more relaxed conditions for construction supervision and the reference projects of the candidates.

In the case of a successful second competition, the construction of the footbridge could begin later this year and could be completed by approximately mid-2020. Most of the construction costs should be covered by a European grant from the ITI program. The repetition of the tender should not jeopardize the drawing of the grant, as the condition is that the construction of the footbridge must be completed by the end of 2023. The city committed to the construction of the footbridge in a contract with Československá obchodní banka, which started building a regional headquarters for a thousand employees in the Aldis zone last December.

The footbridge will be for pedestrians and cyclists and will connect Šimkovy sady and the vicinity of the Aldis congress center with Karel IV. Avenue in the center of the city. The city hall had already built a pedestrian boulevard in the Aldis area in 2003 for 23 million CZK, which the footbridge was supposed to connect to.

In the past, environmentalists had reservations about the footbridge project. The original project counted on the cutting down of one oak tree on the embankment, against which environmentalists successfully protested. Delays and disputes accompanied the architectural competition as well. Ornithologists also raised objections to the design of the footbridge, as the proposed footbridge could interfere with the flight paths of birds, particularly swans. The project was modified due to the ecologists' comments.