«It is not a quick process», — Mykolaiv City Council is about the prospect of repairing the Varvarivskyy and Inhulskyy bridges

The Inhulskyy and Yuzhnobuzkyy (Varvarivskyy) bridges in Mykolaiv, which are currently transferred to the state balance sheet, will not be able to be repaired quickly.

The transfer process is still ongoing, and the development of projects alone will take more than half a year, Ihor Nabatov, deputy director of the housing and communal services department, said in an interview with the «MART» TRC, «NikVesti» reports.

He recalled that at the beginning of February 2020, the city council appealed to the Highway Service and the Cabinet of Ministers regarding the transfer of the Varvariv bridge. It was then that a process was launched that is only now coming to an end.

At the beginning of 2022, there was an understanding that the Varvarivskyy Bridge would be handed over. The meeting of the Cabinet, at which the issue was to be considered, was scheduled for February 24. However, for obvious reasons, it did not happen.

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— About half a year later, the draft order is returned from the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers with the note «outside of time». Probably, it really wasn't the right time then, — said Ihor Nabatov.

At the beginning of 2023, they returned to the question. The mayor, his deputies, and RMA came to the conclusion that the transfer was necessary and started the process again, including the Ingul Bridge, he said.

As reported recently, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the transfer of bridges. The bridges have been handed over to the management of the Restoration Agency and are promised to be overhauled in the future.

Then, the transfer procedure should go quickly — within a month or two. For this purpose, a commission was created on the basis of the State Recovery Agency, which will be joined by representatives of «ELU Avtodorig» and the city council.

It is difficult to say when the bridges will finally be repaired, Ihor Nabatov noted.

The amount for the restoration of Varvarivskyy Bridge, which was announced in 2020-2021, and it is about one billion hryvnias, may no longer be relevant. He also reminded that alternative ways were considered — the construction of another bridge bypassing Mykolaiv or pontoon crossings.

«When we go directly to the repair, and it won't happen quickly, these are serious objects, they are technically complex, but the development of the projects will take at least 6-9 months,» — he added.

Varvarivskyy bridge

Varvarivsky Bridge in Mykolaiv is part of the M-14 highway of international importance «Odesa — Melitopol — Novoazovsk» and is currently in a state of emergency. In February 2020,  the process of transferring the bridge from the municipal ownership of the city to the balance sheet of «Ukravtodor» began, but it has not yet been completed. This is due to the fact that the Ministry of Finance is asking Mykolaiv to provide the cost of reconstruction of the building in order to accept Varvarivsky Bridge as state property. For this, the city needs to conduct an examination and order design and estimate documentation for the repair of the bridge, the total cost of which is about 20 million hryvnias. The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Senkevych, said that there are no funds for this in the city budget.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is also aware of the need to repair the Varvarivskyy bridge. In July 2019, the head of state announced that solving the problem of the Varvarivskyy bridge is the governor's first priority. Four months later, during a briefing in Ochakiv, Volodymyr Zelenskyy voiced this issue again. Then he forced the acting governor of the Mykolaiv Oblast Oleksandr Stadnyk to promise to repair the Varvarivskyy bridge by the end of 2020.

The issue of the transfer of the Varvariv bridge was also addressed by the deputy of the Mykolaiv City Council, Tetiana Dombrovska. In July 2021, she initiated a meeting with the participation of the Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov, representatives of the Ministry of Finance, «Ukravtodor» and the city council, in order to understand the issue of the transfer of the bridge. However, this also did not give results, because after two months the issue was not resolved. At the same time, «Ukravtodor» reported that the question of allocating money for the repair of the Varvariv bridge will be considered only after it is transferred to state ownership.

Inhulskyy and Shyrokobalskyy bridges

In addition to the Varvarivskyy bridge, in February 2020 the deputies of the Mykolaiv City Council also approved the transfer of the Inhulskyy and Shyrokobalskyy bridges to the balance sheet of «Ukravtodor». The vice-mayor of Mykolaiv, Serhii Korenev, said that the Shyrokobalskyy bridge cannot be accepted as state property, because it is not located on a route of international importance. At that time, people's deputy Oleksandr Haydu was ready to provide assistance in finding funds for repairs.

The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Senkevych, said that there is no money in the city budget for the repair of the Shyrokobalskyy crossing in Korabelnyy district. The capital repair project of the bridge provides for the cost of works in the amount of 115 million hryvnias. However, the cost of its reconstruction after passing the examination increased to 165 million hryvnias.

As for the Inhulskyy Bridge, two years after the city council approved the transfer, in July 2021, Vice Mayor Serhii Korenev reported that the city still had not received a response from the central authorities regarding the transfer of the Inhulskyy Bridge to the state. At the same time, People's Deputy of Ukraine from the «Servant of the People» party Oleksandr Haydu said that the transfer of the bridge to the balance sheet of «Ukravtodor» was suspended until all procedures on the Varvarivskyy bridge in Mykolaiv were completed.

In the spring of this year, the director of the utility company «ELU Avtodorig» Vitalii Shevchenko assured that the Varvarivskyi and Inhulskyy bridges in Mykolaiv are so strong that they «can only be demolished by a nuclear explosion».