In an interview on Tatabánya Community Television on Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that Tatabánya is one of the country’s top ten cities – which is a great achievement, given that the city was ruined together with the collapse of socialist large-scale industry. He was speaking after signing an agreement with Mayor of Tatabánya Csaba Schmidt (Fidesz-KDNP) on the local developments to be implemented as part of the Modern Cities Programme.
Mr. Orbán said that the guiding principle of the developments to be implemented in Tatabánya is the plan to boost the local economy. As part of this, the Government has agreed to bear the costs of enlarging the area of the industrial park by140 hectares. Development of training will also serve to boost the economy. The Prime Minister said that the agreement concluded with the Government states that Árpád Grammar School will be oriented towards sciences, that technical higher education will be launched in the city in cooperation with Óbuda University, that a vocational training centre will be set up, and that the county library will be upgraded.
Mr. Orbán described the railway station as being “in a disgraceful state”. He said that “A sophisticated, modern railway station must be built, which will serve as a gateway to this city”, adding that, together with the modernisation of the railway overpass and construction of an underpass, the cost of local transport developments could reach ten billion forints. The Prime Minister told the television channel that a joint task force will be set up with the city in order to formulate concepts for the developments and to clarify the allocation of funds.
Among the issues yet to be decided upon, he mentioned the completion of the development of St. Borbála’s Hospital, the future of the state-owned miners’ hospital, and the use for tourism of the site, buildings and cooling pond of the disused Bánhida power plant.
Mr. Orbán mentioned that the municipality would like to procure forty buses for the development of public transport, but the Government has asked it not to focus on these buses at this point in time, and instead to review the city’s entire public transport system.
A government objective is to ensure that by the end of its term in office there is a fifty-metre indoor swimming pool in every county-ranked city; this will also be implemented in Tatabánya, the Prime Minister said. He added that it is also planned to build a hall for handball matches. As part of a public consultation, the people of Tatabánya will be able to decide if this should be an international-level arena or a smaller facility.
Mr. Orbán said that “The country is beginning to find its feet. This is partly because funding is coming from Brussels, and partly because more Hungarians are paying their taxes, and so we can start thinking about what future our larger cities should have”. He said that, in addition to the 23 county-ranked cities, he will also visit medium-sized towns and the county assemblies, because through them villages can also be reached.