Save Middles has been contacted by architect-company Svend Allen Jensen A/S from Ålborg. The company has been chosen by Hanstholm and Thyborøn as a part in a development of a inhabit strategy for the two fishing towns. Hanstholm should be promoted with the statement “The good life at the Westcoast�.

They’re interested in what could be done to get surfers to settle in the areas. The first demand would be to preserve surfing at Roshage, called for Middles. A meeting is planned, where the organization Save Middles and Sven Allen Jensen A/S will be discussing the opportunities.

The idea is to try to create a new and different development in four fishing-dependent local area’s at the Danish Westcoast. Besides Hanstholm and Thyborøn, there are Ulfborg-Vemb and Holmsland municipality.

The project’s result will be that every town gets a summery over the strong points it has compared with the others, there will also be registered which areas and neighbourhoods need lifting.

Before the ideas can become acts, the project will end up as a concrete inhabit strategy, showing where, how and when there should be taken action in the concerning area’s.

This inhabit strategy launched in 2004 with a 4,5 million Euro as a support in the back. It’s an extension of the national inhabit strategy called ‘Denmark in balance’, which the government brought out in 2003.

Now that the municipality election is over we may ascertain that the following, who are in the current municipality of Hanstholm, are elected for the new municipality of Thisted (when joining the municipalities nationwide in 2007).

Ejner Frøkjær, Morten Bo Bertelsen and Poul Erik Skov Sørensen all from Socialdemokratiet-party. Arne Kjær Kaspersen from Venstre-party.

This organization has been in contact with these people in question. We like the fact that these people have said that they are positive about surfing in Thy (NW Denmark), and would love to see that we develop the area’s potentials.

Susanne Olander has also been elected. Susanne has on several occasions expressed her opinion on surfing in Thy, and that it is one of the cases she’d love to have on the agenda.

Nobody can be in doubt that the pearl of Middles needs to be preserved. We congratulate the concerning people with this election and are looking forward to a dialog and cooperation.

This organization has just recieved the pictures taken at Middles during SoulWave. Just to remind us what we’re fighting for. We go for another season …

The organization Save Middles has in a meeting with Hanstholm mayor, Ejner Frøkjær, suggested that there should be made a master plan for surfing in Thy (NW Denmark). The area hosts fabulous opportunities. But nevertheless it’s never had a proper plan for surfing.

The organization means that such a plan relies on the following:

1) Formalization of physical boundary, at places where surfers reside
2) ICT based information, communication and marketing intended for surfers
3) Having a stop for the World Cup in Thy

The proposal also desires to overcome the problems, which have occurred earlier, with on one side the surfer-tourists and on the other the local people.

The mayor gave a positive reaction on this proposal

We’ve been working hard behind the scenes. The report from NIRAS has arrived, which all the interested parties have received the 1st of November. The following is a part of this report’s summary:

From the very start the organization Save Middles pronounced that surfing near Roshage pier excellently could be combined with the desired aquaculture, windmills and damming within Hanstholm harbour’s property. This we have in black and white.

The organization has gathered money and hired engineering company NIRAS. Our goal was to research the possibilities for two alternative locations for the location which threatens to destroy Middles – one of Europe’s best surfing locations.

NIRAS’ researches are found in a report, filling well 50 pages. The report concludes that nothing obstructs an alternative location for placement of aquaculture, windmills and damming at Hanstholm harbour. In many ways it turns out that the project would gain, using these alternative locations.

The organization speaks for Danske Sejlunion (Danish Sailingunion), Dankse Brætsejler Organisation (Danish Boardsailor Organization) and the local surfclub NASA, as we underline that the westcoast in Thy (Northwest Denmark) hosts fantastic surf locations. Middles is a class by itself. Therefore the westcoast in Thy is unique seen from a recreational and sporting point of view. The surrounding’s quality is significant for the local people, people in Denmark and in Europe.

When deciding to continue the project Large windmills at Hanstholm harbour, we strongly recommend, to preserve Middles and concentrate at the alternative locations.

A fact is that people in municipals don’t have any idea what surfing means for this area. There is no durable plan for surfing. Surfing should be integrated in the concept that from now on should profile Thy as the area, nicknamed The cold Hawaii.

Towncouncillor Svend K. Jepsen wrote in newspaper Thisted Dagblad the 25th of October the following:
“Generally I have the same opinion as my collegues, that for sure not surfers will decide this case, but solely Hanstholm citizens. These windmills will never be build when the citizens don’t want them, it’s as simple as that.”

The 13th of October have 25 Hanstholm citizens founded an organization against the windmills, with a board of 8 persons. The organization wishes to cooperate with Save middles.

The 6th of October the Hanstholm town council agreed on continuing the process of establishing plans for Hantholm Harbour, as the project has many registered objections. Nevertheless voted 10 towncoucillors for and 3 against continuing the process, which now is being continued paying regard to the objections.
This means that -1) The plan will be dropped, 2) An alternative plan wins, 3) The current plan continues.

The 15th of September Hanstholm harbour came up with an alternative compromising plan. In this plan the damming area has been reduced. Save Middles has rejected this plan:
The organisation has three things in mind when it comes to saving the surfspot: Place to surf, maintaining a stable wind, maintaining wavedirection. Regarding these three points this ‘alternative’ can still not be accepted:
Too little space to surf, where the less experienced will be pressed downwind where there’s little wind, while upwind the dam might cause danger.
The dam still blocks the wind in many wind directions, the mills will give turbulence.
The waves will still reflect on the dam, disturbing the incoming waves.

Facts about:

Damming
One of the main reasons given for building a dam is coastal erosion. Danish geologists, on the other hand, find this very strange, because they find this piece of coastline very interesting, because it has so little coastal erosion: Apart from Bornholm, an island with a cliff coast all around, this coastline has the least erosion of the country, and is far from threatening.

Roshage 1965

Roshage 2002

Hanstholm mayor admits that coastline protection is not necessary, but wants to continue the damming.
As far as the organisation Save Middles knows there are three ways of setting up an aqua culture:

1. Water comes from under the ground (In some occasion this might be rejected by ‘Viborg Amt’)
2. Water is being added once upon a time and circulates (no damming is needed)
3. Water is pumped in from the nearest river, dam, coastline or anything like that.

This organisation understood the plan in such a way that the dam is being used as a filter, or to be used to re-circulate the water.
Rapports show that aquaculture that needs damming is not profitable and that profitable aquaculture not needs damming:

* The pump-in construction is in no way profitable
* There is too little water in this aquaculture to make a re-circulation construction affordable

DHI (Danish Hydraulic Institute) has been cooperating on this rapport and confirmed this situation, as so K.B. Christensen from ‘Landsforening det levende hav’ confirmed this situation
So why using a dam? Besides, the area behind Middles is determined to be land for aquaculture.

Windmills
Northwestwinds are strong and frequent. That is after all why surfing on this stretch of land, where the wind blows parallel to the coast, is that good. But the windmills are standing parallel to the coast as well, meaning; that the first windmill catches all the wind, and the rest will have to it with ‘leftovers’ and turbulence. The other predominate wind direction are SW’erlies. But the town of Hanstholm, situated on a hill of 75 m high will catch a lot of these SW winds, even though the mills are double the size of a regular one.
Nautical windmills such as these work best with a distance of 1 km between them, in this case there five nautical windmills on 1,1 km