Aud Mork, mayor of Aukra, experienced that luck turned. From disastrous municipal finances and emigration to hectic activity and increasing birth rates.
It’s a dark, windswept autumn day in 2001. In the town hall there’s a sombre atmosphere. It takes more than a bit of rough weather to create a sombre atmosphere out here. And the atmosphere is definitely gloomy.
Aud Mork sits with her closest colleagues discussing how they are going to make deep cuts in the municipal budget. All available funds have been spent.
They no longer discuss figures. They have gone further than that. Now they look at actual positions that have to be cut – in the care for the elderly, in the health sector, in childcare.
Each decision they take will lead to a poorer service for those who live on the island. Making the island a slightly less agreeable place to live. And make the municipality a little less capable of stemming the tide of emigration that has grown in recent years.
However, just a year later their luck turns. The decision on 18 December 2002 to bring the gas to Nyhamna will be a golden turning point.
“This is a fairytale without comparison in our region,” exclaimed an enthusiastic Aud Mork. With income tax from the gas treatment plant at Nyhamna, the income side of the municipality’s budget received a huge increase.
Suddenly the challenge was not to cut, slice, squeeze, reduce – but to keep your feet firmly on the ground. The funds would be used for the long-term development of the municipality as a good community in which to live.
A new day had dawned for the people of Gossen.
From the very first day, Hydro was on the spot providing helpful and comprehensive information regarding events on the island in the years ahead, explains Mork.
To ensure that the local population would have an accurate picture of the activities that would dominate the island at all times.
At regular intervals, meetings were held with the villagers’ association as well as other public meetings, where Hydro’s local community liaison officer, Jon Korsvold, together with other representatives from Hydro, informed the inhabitants about status and future plans, at the same time as the neighbours to the plant were given the opportunity to ask questions and air their comments.
Furthermore they were invited onto the site as the work progressed to see the changing shape of the construction landscape.
From digging, blasting and earth moving, to moulding, iron fixing and heavy lifting from a jungle of lifts, to erecting buildings and assembling valves, tanks, pipes, compressors for what will eventually become one of Norway’s largest gas treatment plants.
Each month a meeting was held in the contact forum on the island, where Hydro met representatives of the municipality, the Norwegian Federation of Trade Unions, the church and bailiff’s office.
All problems were laid on the table. No matter was too small, no issue too great, according to bailiff Odd Jørgen Nilssen.
