BhENEFIT project partner’s meeting and study visit in Poprad region
9 - 11 October, Poprad, Slovakia
The meeting took place in one of the three project pilot sites in Poprad, in the northern part of Slovakia. The city of Poprad, together with the PP SPECTRA welcomed the project partners, organising a visit of the project site and 3 case studies locations, Spisska Sobota (part of Poprad), city of Bardejov and municipality of Hervartov.
During the first day, participants met after their arrival in the evening to discuss the HBA area of Poprad. At the meeting took part also Martin Baloga, head of the Local Support Group , Jozef Švagerko, Mayor of the city, Igor Wzoš Deputy Mayor and others city representatives. The second day was devoted to site visits, during which project partners arrived by bus to city of Bardejov, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and had the opportunity to meet with the city’s Deputy Mayor, who introduced the city and its assets. Followed a lively discussion, in which project partners show great interest in HBA protection of the UNESCO site. After Bardejov, the day continued in lovely picturesque Municipality of Hervatov, place of unique wooden churches, and Zips (Spis) area with its distinctive church district Spisska kapitula. The day ended with a brief discussion regarding the sites and best practices
The final day was a characterised by a series of presentation panels. Firstly, WP T1 had a workshop on governance of HBA, in which one partner for each country presented the status quo of governance and its main challenges. WPs Management and Communication had a session on keeping up to date and reporting from each PP. After lunch there was a workshop within WP T2 which parallelly had two parts: one group was presenting and discussing the pilot sites and the following steps while the other group’s agenda was about the main obstacles and challenges of HBA management.
The event was an important meeting to specify more precisely the project objectives and the foreseen outcomes. There was a discussion on best practice examples in a form of brainstorming of potential cases and project partners, agreed on final ones to be used as inspiration for the project. Partners had an opportunity to see the local specifics of the Poprad project pilot site, as well as of other locations and to obtain better understanding on challenges of monument sites in Slovakia, which will contribute to produce more appropriate and more effective strategies and tools as the project outcomes. Besides, the administrative challenges were addressed, in particular the issues related to the administrative differences and relative difficulties on national levels which still remain unaddressed.