Aarhus skal lære af fejl fra forsøget på at udvide Aarhus Havn

AARHUS: The advice that the Municipal Department of Technology and Environment gave to the city council in connection with the now stopped port expansion in Aarhus was flawed and inadequate due to a number of different factors. Overall, previous practice and laws in the area made it so complex that the municipality was not sufficiently clear about the division of roles between state and municipality, concludes the report prepared by Muusmann A/S. This is stated by the Municipality of Aarhus.

The errors meant that the Aarhus City Council adopted a local plan that was also flawed, just as the municipal plan amendment was later declared invalid by the Planning Appeals Board, which in turn meant that the expansion of the port was stopped.

The port expansion project lacked competent legal advice close enough to the decisions, and there were unresolved responsibilities and inadequate and unclear project management, which meant uncertainty about how ownership responsibility and authority responsibility are separated.

- It has been very important to me that we get an outside view on how we can prevent something like this from happening in the future. I think the report gives a tangible picture that in the future we must have much clearer and more present management of our authority projects. Especially when they are made under difficult legislation over a six-year period with changing project proposals, says Councillor for Technology and Environment Nicolaj Bang (K).

Absence of management

The report's summary states, among other things, that the two project managers, with responsibility for the planning process with local plan and municipal plan supplement and responsibility for the EIA authority, respectively, had no formal management responsibility.

The operational management responsibility for the authority process was anchored in one project owner, the then head of administration for planning and environment, who was head of administration for several areas - including planning and construction.  

External consultants were only used to a limited extent and then exclusively in connection with the municipality's performance of the authority role as EIA authority. It is further concluded that the absence of clear and professional management has affected the well-being in the planning department.

The study shows that neither the councillor nor the director of engineering and environment have been systematically or sufficiently informed about the established project organization. And that neither the mayor nor the mayor's department has been informed by the department for technology and the environment about the risks.

Room for improvement

The report comes with a number of recommendations on what Technology and the Environment should strengthen in its project management of large and complicated planning processes.

• Implement and strengthen the project model
• Prioritize planning legal competence
• Prioritize complex cases higher
• Strengthen internal cooperation with the Municipal Plan
• Strengthen the clarification of authority roles
• Strengthen clarity about the division of roles

The councilor for technology and the environment has now included the conciliation group behind the port expansion in the changes that the municipality's management has already initiated, so that according to the municipality it already has much more thorough legal support for complicated cases.

At the same time, a new administrative management and a restructuring of the administration have provided clearer responsibility in the major cases.

- But there are a number of things that we need to get under control in continuation of the review of the case from Muusmann. We are strengthening the professional management in the departments in question, so that we can strengthen the quality of our task performance and the well-being of our employees, says Nicolaj Bang.

- Now we have received feedback that we will find forward-looking solutions for, and that we will work on in close collaboration with our employees, because the report should help us improve, says the councilor.

See more in Main report_Investigation of the authority's responsibility for the expansion of the Port of Aarhus.