It’s stylish in Jordal, but the local community is the loser

It’s so stupid it hurts.

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Jordal Amfi has resurfaced as a great new arena. In the surrounding area, a magnificent park is being completed, where the Hovin stream flows again, surrounded by ornamental plants and picturesque bridges. All very good, and very expensive.

In the middle of the facility is the heart of the local environment: skating ramp and artificial grass pitch. Before the start of the construction of Jordal Amfi in 2016, there was a full activity here, a wonderful mix of organized and unorganized sports. Skating, rollerblading, soccer, field hockey, American football, and more. Equally important: you went out with friends, chatted, and kicked the ball. A true loop in the middle of the city.

Closed the cycle for many years

Construction work has come full circle for many years. For your convenience, we have the Oslo Municipality Needs Plan for Culture, Sports and Leisure, 2019-2028. It was said that the artificial turf should be returned with underfloor heating, that the clubhouse should be in urgent need of renovation and that the skate park should be converted to a concrete facility.

When the ice rink and the park were finished, the impact occurred. The improvements have been suddenly and incomprehensibly erased from both the needs plan and the municipal budget. The only thing that is promised to implement is artificial grass. In worse condition than before. Otherwise, the requirements plan states that there are nine subheated artificial grass pitches in the west / north of Oslo, but only one in the city center of Oslo and one in the east of Oslo.

How fervently should we not have a year-round sports court and an inclusive clubhouse, instead of a luxurious stream? How happy were we to not have a concrete skating rink to benefit crowds of children and youth?

Now the skating ramp is literally rotting away. A new concrete plant would also move away activities from the cavities under the ramp, such as drug sales, housing and urination.

Possibilities of the future evaporated

Prestigious buildings like Jordal Amfi have sporting value, but here the local community is the loser. Not least the unorganized sports for young people in our district, where people live in crowded conditions and child poverty is highest in the country.

Many children and young people cannot afford organized sports. In Jordal, they could have been active on the concrete ramp, on the artificial grass field (now summer only), and in the newly renovated clubhouse that was planned with activities for all the youth in the district, not just members. of sports teams.

Young people have assumed the cost of the construction project, since their largest activity scenario has been closed for five years. They have lost a lot, and now they have eliminated the opportunities that awaited them in the future at a stroke. It’s so stupid it hurts.

“A crime prevention measure,” the Jordal school principal called the plans, which have now disappeared. We hope politicians make sense and put them back in both the needs plan and the budget.

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