Sports resembling a cable car to Sněžka threaten its financing

Pec pod Sněžkou (Trutnovsko) - The financing of the construction of a new cable car to Sněžka is threatened by a dispute over how its station at the summit of the mountain will look. Architects have proposed a station in the shape of large contoured tubes, but the administration of the Krkonošsko National Park disagrees. In order for the investor to obtain documents for the application for a grant from EU funds, the project must be clear by mid-June at the latest. This was stated by today's Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD) in the supplement for the Hradec Králové region.
    The investor has been negotiating with the park administrators for a month, but a decision on the design of the stations at Sněžka and Růžová hora has not yet been made. "The park administration wants the new stations to resemble the original ones, but that differs greatly from our proposal," said the chairman of the supervisory board of the Sněžka Cable Car, Michal Hošek.
    According to the cable car designer David Kratochvíl, the fundamental problem is that the modern technological equipment of the cable car will not fit into the original space of the station. "For the park administration, three conditions are crucial: to preserve the same floor plan, the volume of the building, and the current appearance. We insist on that," said the park administration spokesperson Radek Drahný.
    The new cable car is expected to cost 350 to 400 million crowns, with up to 85 percent potentially covered by European funds. "Discussions about grants will take place in November or December, and by then we must have all the documents available. A decision on the project must be made by mid-June at the latest so that we can obtain a building permit in the fall," said Hošek.
    Discussions about the new cable car have been ongoing since 1990. The park administrators have resisted the construction of the new cable car to the summit from the beginning. They argued that the cable car should only lead to Růžová hora and that people would have to walk to the top. The last section of the old cable car would remain to be retired. The municipality of Pec pod Sněžkou began to plan for this, but proposed building a new ski slope from Růžohorek to Pec. A breakthrough occurred this year when both sides agreed that the cable car would go all the way to the summit, but the hourly capacity would remain at the current 250 passengers, and the ski slope would be built elsewhere.