The government boasted that E6 will be completed in Helgeland, provoked Mayor Grane – NRK

Not long ago, the E6 Helgeland was completed.

At least almost.

There are still several sections that have not been built at the southern tip of Nordland.

Today, the government allocated 450 million to complete the stretch between Svenningelv and Lien at the Trofors municipal center in the municipality of Grane.

Odd Emil Ingebrigtsen (H), a happy and satisfied Fisheries Minister, met with the press today in Stormen, Bodø, to spread the news.

Ingebrigtsen told NRK:

What he did not say was that the two southernmost parcels in E6 Helgeland south have not yet been included in the project.

Ellen Schjølberg (Sp), speaker at Grane, reacts.

She thinks that Ingebrigtsen is wrong:

– E6 is not complete. It is wrong. There are two plots that they simply choose not to mention. We hope they are completed as well.

– If it says it is complete, then it has not sat on the case. Simply. I would say that such a statement is a bit provocative.

– Good news for Grane

It was originally planned that nine different parcels would be developed across southern Helgeland.

But two of them became what are called option charts.

This means that if the money is stretched, they would have to be built. Otherwise they should not be built, explains Ingelin Noresjø (KrF).

She is Secretary of State of the Ministry of Transport and Communications:

– Due to increased costs, you have no points for the last two plots. Then they remain. That doesn’t mean it will never come, but at this point in the budget year we haven’t found funds for it.

The two optional plots in question are the Trøndelag – Majahaugen border (4.1 km) and Flyum – Kappfjelli (5.1 km).

Noresjø is happy to have found money to start up the remaining section of the Svenningelv-Lien bridge. It is a total of about 10 kilometers.

In an SMS to NRK this morning, Noresjø wrote:

Today 10:09

Ingelin Noresjø:Cost framework increase for South Helgeland by 450 million. This means that construction of the road through Trofors in Grane will continue as planned in 2021.

– It doesn’t stop, since one was worried for a while because the money ran out. This is good news, especially for the municipality of Grane, which has been paying tolls for quite some time. Now they get a long-awaited new path.

FRP is critical

The Storting representative, Kjell-Børge Freiberg (Frp), on the other hand, believes that the state budget is failing along the way.

– So it’s been half a year since we left the government, until we recorded that road allocations have been reduced by about 10 percent, or 4.2 billion. It is dramatic and not good enough.

Point out two major projects:

– E6 will not be completed in Helgeland. Then there is money for Hålogalandsveien. But it is a means of planning, not a means of getting started.

But: The two parcels in Grane were selected by then-Transport Minister Jon Georg Dale in 2018. Who represents Frp.

– The packages disappeared during your watch. How can we trust you now?

– If today we had controlled the Ministry of Transport and Communications, I am sure they would have been inside. We will use the bargaining power we have to do what we have been told to do. And it is to finish building the E6 in Helgeland.

Narrow winding road

The price of the two sections taken south of Nordland was initially NOK 160 million (external link).

Schjølberg is happy with the money coming to the stretch of road between Svenningelv – Lien. But he points out that a consistently good E6 is needed up north.

With what’s now been built of the new E6 at Helgeland, they’ve gotten rid of the worst and most accident-prone sections, he says.

But also what remains is described as narrow and winding.

– When in eastern Norway they have four corridors that you can drive from north to south between Trondheim and Oslo, I hope that a corridor through Nordland and north Norway really catches the eye.

– There were also option plots in Rana. These were built. Once you’ve done that, you can do it again.