Planned Polish hub airport opposed in local vote
PR dla Zagranicy
Grzegorz Siwicki
18.06.2018 09:22
Eighty-four percent of voters taking part in a local referendum have opposed an ambitious plan to build a large new airport in the centre of Poland, according to reports.
Photo: PAP/Jacek Turczyk
Residents in the district of Baranów, 45 km west of the capital Warsaw, on Sunday overwhelmingly voted against the planned construction of one of the largest hub airports in Europe in their neighbourhood, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
Sixteen percent of voters approved the plan, with turnout at 47 percent, IAR said, citing the chief district officer, Andrzej Kolek.
A government official in charge of the central airport project -- Deputy Infrastructure Minister Mikołaj Wild -- said ahead of the vote that the referendum would not be binding, but that the voice of the public would be taken into account, according to IAR.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda in early June gave his seal of approval to the plan to build the new hub airport.
The airport, to be built between Warsaw and the central city of Łódź, is expected to handle up to 100 million passengers a year and be one of the largest hub airports in Europe after it is completed in 2027.
The construction project is due to start in 2021 and cost anywhere from PLN 20 billion (EUR 4.65 bn, USD 5.42 bn) to PLN 30 billion (EUR 7 bn, USD 8.15 bn), according to an estimate given by an infrastructure ministry official last year.
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Source: IAR