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Kazincbarcika takes a second shot at skatepark construction after costly demolition of EU-funded project
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The municipality of Kazincbarcika is embarking on the construction of a skatepark for the second time. The EU-funded project was built in such poor quality first time, that they decided to demolish it. This mistake incurred a loss of nearly 100 million HUF (EUR 260 thousand) – this amount was paid to the first contractor. The current project was assigned to a different contractor, with the cost amounting to 300 million HUF (EUR 780 thousand), a significant increase from the original budget of 130 million forints (EUR 340 thousand).
The town of Kazincbarcika in northern Hungary is witnessing the construction of a skateboard park in the same place where a park was almost built a few years ago. The previous version was unsuitable for sports, leading to the cessation of construction and the demolition of the track. The first skatepark was awarded EU funding (TOP-2.1.1-15-BO1-2016-00006), according to the public procurement notice. The skatepark covers an area of almost 2,000 square meters. However, it was a mistake for the municipality to choose a contractor without similar experience to build the skatepark in 2021.
This summer, the municipality of Kazincbarcika opened a tender for the construction of the second track. Concreative Hungary Kft. from Győrújfalu emerged as the winner, which undertook the work for a net price of HUF 295 million (EUR 780 thousand). When adding the expense of previous pitch, the total investment in the sports facility comes close to HUF 400 million (EUR 1 million).
No compensation claimed from the contractor
Tamás Marics submitted a FOI request to the municipality, and he was undeterred even when the municipality initially ignored his letter. Marics turned to the NAIH (National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information). With the help of the authority’s intervention, he finally received answers to his questions after 3.5 months of waiting. It turned out that the municipality paid the costs of the demolition, and that the contractors received a net amount of HUF 95.9 million (EUR 250 thousand) out of a net amount of HUF 128 million (EUR 335 thousand) for the work. According to the contract, the client is entitled to compensation.
The first skatepark in April 2022 (photo: ride.hu)
Marics’ public interest data request revealed that no compensation was paid, and even the cost of demolition was covered by the municipality. The opposition mayor, Péter Szitka and the contractors for the first track declined to comment to our newspaper.
Nikosz Fazekas, the leader of the BMX Association of Borsod County, played a part in the removal of the track by reporting the issue to the municipality in July 2022.
‘I contacted the municipality and told them the skatepark would be unusable. It’s not built with the right materials, the curves are not correct, the skatepark is an accident hazard, it’s not built the way a facility like this should look. The municipality pretty much took my point, so they decided to demolish what had already been built back to zero, and there was a lot of bad work already put into it. Now another contractor is building it, and from the pictures, it seems like it will be good, even though we’re not being consulted again this time’– said Nikosz.
Translated by Szilvia Zsilák. The original, more detailed Hungarian version of this story was written by Szilvia Zsilák and can be found here. Cover photo, video: Gergely Pápai/Átlátszó.