Culture | Adolescence | Residential | Environment | Business | Science and Education | International residents | Energy | Svalbard politics
Culture, Volunteering, Well-being and Community
Many of us come to Svalbard because of the nature and adventure, but it is the community and people that make us stay and thrive here. The various places to meet, the culture, sports, outdoors and indoor activities led by enthusiastic people and volunteers are not something that just happen on their own. They needs to be actively and continuously pursued.
The Svalbard Liberal Party wants to:
- Ensure the operations of the youth club and self-directed youth centre
- Give life to the city’s future plan concerning sports and physical activity, and ensure more consistent work regarding the public health, sports and continued development of Svalbardhallen with its adjacent outdoor facility
- Secure a better and lasting solution for the ski hill
- Establish a public health coordinator in Longyearbyen’s municipal government, primarily financed with external funds. The purpose is to secure cooperation, continuity and coordination within sports, outdoor activities and culture. Cooperation with Aktiv i Friluft, Svalbard Turn and other stakeholders is also a goal.
- Support initiatives leading to an increase in local facilities and positive, social places to meet
- Ensure everyone on the electoral list of the Liberal Party will be an active contributor during the annual TV campaign! (TV-aksjonen)
- Provide an opportunity for cruise tourists/visitors to shop at Nordpolet in order to increase the revenue toward the Korkpenger fund that provides local cultural and recreational grants.
- Korkpenger: Secure long-term financing for local associations/events, support new initiatives that are in the public’s best interest, and strengthen the allocations of applications that benefit the children and youth of Longyearbyen. After Korkpenger financing for the cultural civic centre comes through, a similar solution for sports facilities should be set in motion
- Contribute to the establishment of an open workshop (Makerspace) in Longyearbyen that is positively connected to Artica, Testination and the Smart City concept
- Procure flexible arrangements allowing overnight stays within school buildings/Svalbardhallen during events, managed by volunteer teams and associations
- Establish a service and maintenance function for outdoor facilities in town – for example for trash and dog poo handling, rundown streetlights, Sherpa trails, and facilitaties for tourists/visitors.
- Establish a loan arrangement for sports equipment
Culture | Adolescence | Residential | Environment | Business | Science and Education | International residents | Energy | Svalbard politics
School, adolescence/upbringing and social conditions
A safe, stimulating and developing family community is a significant part of the soul of Longyearbyen. Positive and inclusive terms of adolescence is one of the most important tasks local politics is responsible for. Longyearbyen School is an important contributor to maintain and strengthen the family community.
The Svalbard Liberal Party wants to:
- Ensure stable resources at the school to maintain good educational training opportunities. Holding on to expertise over time will be prioritised
- Ensure resources and systems to handle non-Norwegian-speaking students in a positive manner. Solutions must preserve educational quality for Norwegian-speaking children, while also providing opportunities and incentives to learn Norwegian
- Work toward the result of a full upper secondary education program and residents of Svalbard being included in the quota of Northern Norwegian applicants to the University Of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway
- Establish more social research to secure a better foundation for decision-making in the future
- Secure a positive medical program angled more toward the regular general practice arrangement on the mainland
- Work to provide a local program for various specialist health services – for example, speech therapy and a psychologist, as public or private services
- Be brave and open to change where regulations create social differences for the citizens of Longyearbyen
- Strengthen the upper secondary programs to ensure a more stable student base
- Consider current professional course programs that are also in line with development in the local business industry
- Continuously work to reduce turnover within the community (contract conditions, incentives, moving costs, etc.)
- Ensure positive progress of work regarding the coordination of the kindergarten program
- Provide a more robust cultural school and consider cooperational solutions that also benefit volunteer organisations, marching bands, choirs and others, in the form of conductor and instructional services
- Have Sirkus Svalnardo as an activity within Kulturskolen (the Cultural School)
Culture | Adolescence | Residential | Environment | Business | Science and Education | International residents | Energy | Svalbard politics
Residential and urban development
A well-functioning residential and rental market is important. Even so, a large, private residential market is not the sole solution to housing challenges. There is also a wide agreement on this in the Norwegian Parliament, for reasons related to Svalbard politics. As such, a just and neutral housing program for inhabitants need to be secured through several means to ensure a good balance between private, state and other public residential and property development.
The Svalbard Liberal Party wants to:
- Secure support of a local government-owned company as a large residential ally who will fairly provide offerings to the private market, as well as the public and private housing providers
- Implement existing area, sector and theme plans
- Ignite the process of transforming the area by the sea (Sjøområdet) and Hotellneset
- Facilitate the construction of new residential buildings that covers demand, including dormitories
- Continue with full power on the work in regards to landslide and erosion prevention within the city, and work toward making this financed by the state
- Follow up on and ensure positive progress in the development of Longyearbyen Harbour
- Work to find better snowmobile parking and seasonal storage solutions, keeping a tidy urban profile in mind
- Establish a binding cooperative agreement surrounding urban development, infrastructure, security and environment between Longyearbyen’s municipal government and the communities of the science park (Forskningsparken)
Culture | Adolescence | Residential | Environment | Business | Science and Education | International residents | Energy | Svalbard politics
Environment
The Arctic captures the whole world’s attention, and is in a special position when it comes to the effects of climate change and globally environmental challenges. The measures we take here will be noticed. This is challenging, but also provides us with possibilities. Longyearbyen as a developing arena and showcase community is such a possibility. The Svalbard Liberal Party wants to contribute to the management of this development in the right direction, clearly expecting from the central authorities this is a part of the international responsibility that Norway holds in the Arctic.
The Svalbard Liberal Party wants:
- To use the UN’s sustainability goals and the government’s roadmap of green competitiveness as the guidelines for decisions made in local government
- Establish a service and maintenance function for outdoor facilities in town – for example for trash and dog poo handling, rundown streetlights, Sherpa trails, and facilitaties for tourists/visitors.
- Establish a lasting financing of this function through income from sources such as the Svalbard Environmental Protection Fund, harbour, new tourist fees and Korkpenger
- Ensure a solid portion of the environmental protection fund contributes to local community measures and an environmentally friendly facilitation of the business industry
- Continue and develop Bruktikken as a recycling arena
- Raise the environmental station/new disposal facility from a pre-project state to realisation
- Improve waste disposal programs so better handling, sorting and reuse is prioritised
- Support and participate in projects that reuse materials and buildings from the Svea project and moving/demolition of residential buildings exposed to landslides
- Streamline energy infrastructure, and make it possible to highlight and control the consumption
- Be an active team player with regards to initiatives toward shared services, be it cars, snowmobiles and/or others
- Support good initiatives by Smart City and provide the result of Longyearbyen becoming a Smart Arctic City. The Svalbard Liberal Party feels this work is not something that can be decided by the local government and forced upon the rest of the city. The really smart solutions, customised to individuals and companies of Longyearbyen, is created through positive processes, incentive arrangements and cooperation
- Ensure adjustments and regulations to benefit in the best way from cruise traffic. Limit negative consequences that could affect the environment and local community, in addition to considering a maximum amount and size of ships
- Introduce a differentiated harbour fee based on the degree of pollution
Culture | Adolescence | Residential | Environment | Business | Science and Education | International residents | Energy | Svalbard politics
Business industry
Longyearbyen is in a changing position. To develop new and diverse workplaces is crucial to create an attractive and robust family community where people thrive over time.
Local business industry is very important to the service functions in an isolated community that lack neighbouring communities. This is why conditions such as local affiliation, local social responsibility, Norwegian working conditions and decent contract conditions will be prioritised in the business industry.
The Svalbard Liberal Party wants to:
- Ensure the state and the public system emphasizes the meaning of the total, local community perspective in the design of tenders and procurement arrangements
- Ensure local business health service with sufficient capacity is made available to all employers
- Ensure activity attached to Svalbard should benefit the community of Longyearbyen. Svalbard should not be a tumbler for a growing amount of external businesses without local social responsibility
- Have a well-arranged and organised employment situation
- Have an office fellowship/incubator/business park/meeting place that stimulates new activity – and that can contribute to a tighter unity between business industry, innovation, entrepreneurial industry and science
- Procure a business industry coordinator position that works closely with the business industry itself
- Contribute to a thorough and good discussion about how the travel industry can grow ways that benefit the local community
- Ensure the travel industry is developed further and continues to be a vital business industry contributor in need of a secure foothold stimulating toward the goal of year-round operation and steady full-time positions
- Make clear Longyearbyen needs to developed into becoming something more than simply a travel destination, and work towards a more varied and rich business industry to benefit the inhabitants, the travel industry and the visitors
- Find solutions that secure the highest possible development of sustainability in regards to the ocean-based travel industry and that secure the value added to benefit the local community.
- Ensure the role of Store Norske as a state stock company with clear sector-based political goals in Svalbard is developed further to benefit the local community
- Continue the operations of Mine 7 (Gruve 7) and increase the knowledge of the industrial commodity Store Norske produces, and ensure the export contributes to metal production necessary in the low-emission community of the future
- Contribute to a tighter interaction between the business industry and science, with the goal of more local and year-round workplaces
- Secure better and comprehensive shipping, transport, post and logistic services for the local community and locally based businesses
- Ensure the business industry in Longyearbyen operates with a minimum wage, and the conditions of the employment are in accordance to the general application regulations and nationwide tariffs
- Ensure there are good supervising functions that secure the employees and that companies compete on equal terms
Culture | Adolescence | Residential | Environment | Business | Science and Education | International residents | Energy | Svalbard politics
Science and Education
The Svalbard Liberal Party is a knowledge party. We seek more science and more students who stay longer and take part in the community of Longyearbyen.
The Svalbard Liberal Party wants to:
- Be a friend of Svalbard Folk High School by challenging and contributing to the students’ and employees’ involvement and inclusion within the local community
- Work toward having studies at UNIS financed by Lånekassen (the loan office for educational support) the same way studies are financed abroad
- Have more business-focused research at UNIS – for example, by strengthening and commercialising the concept of the Arctic Safety Center
- Establish a Climate and National Park Centre as an integrated part of the existing Science Park to ensure joint operational benefits
- Turn Svalbard into a test arena by further developing the Science Park into a science and innovation centre. Such knowledge creates new businesses
- Establish sensible reuse of Svea for teaching and research purposes
- Work to receive refunding of student loans for residents of Svalbard, in the same way as Finnmark and Nord-Troms
Culture | Adolescence | Residential | Environment | Business | Science and Education | International residents | Energy | Svalbard politics
International residents
This Norwegian, but still very international and isolated, community close to the North Pole offers an exciting dynamic, but also represents some cultural and welfare challenges.
The possibilities and rights provided through the Svalbard Treaty are not the same as what the Norwegian welfare, health and social system commits to equally for all. The Svalbard Liberal Party wants everyone to feel welcome and included in our warm society and residents the same rights and duties associated with employment and contract conditions. However, it is still important that everyone understands the special conditions and limitations that exists in regards to living in Longyearbyen and that everyone is made aware in a clear and understandable way.
The Svalbard Liberal Party wants to:
- Ensure Longyearbyen is experienced as generous and inclusive
- Provide the opportunity for good Norwegian training so everyone can contribute and participate in the society
- Ensure Norwegian is the dominant language of the work environment, but generously adjust this when another language contributes to a better and safer fellowship
- Ensure people who move to Longyearbyen are sufficiently informed when it comes to the different social conditions that apply and what limitations exist compared to a citizen with a Norwegian passport settled on mainland Norway
- Create a clear understanding explaining how inclusion means both rights and responsibilities
- Support inclusive measures taken that provide positive contributions to the local community
- Secure state financing of responsibility areas imposed on local government beyond today’s service offerings
Culture | Adolescence | Residential | Environment | Business | Science and Education | International residents | Energy | Svalbard politics
Energy supply
The energy supply is the heart of Longyearbyen. It is fundamental and of the highest importance to continue this broad work towards finding the long-term energy solution of the future. At the same time there must be taken measures to improve today’s energy solution, which is based on the local resource of coal in Svalbard.
The Svalbard Liberal Party wants to:
- Prioritise immediate measures to reduce coal consumption, reduce environmental emissions, ensure a sufficient supply of power/heating and provide greater predictability for maintenance
- Consider ownership of the energy supply in Longyearbyen to make sure the costs of the supply do not get in the way of services the city provides to residents – including services such as the school, kindergarten, infrastructure and technical services. An ownership solution needs to ensure a much clearer accountability in regards to the state
- As coal is gradually removed from the energy supply, a larger share of Mine 7’s production will go towards industry/metallurgy
- Quickly initiate such measures – for example, a battery bank and solar panel facility as a supplement for today’s energy production
- Begin the work of upgrades and measures for ENØK in regards to both district heating networks and buildings to create a better balance between power and district heating
- Work towards a clearer sustainable perspective for the long-term energy solution. It does not make much sense to replace fossil fuel with fossil fuel
- Make sure the developing and innovating focus is prioritised for the continued work towards the energy solution of the future
Culture | Adolescence | Residential | Environment | Business | Science and Education | International residents | Energy | Svalbard politics
Svalbard politics
With Svalbard as part of it, Norway is a great ocean nation and an Arctic superpower. Norway needs to keep this in mind with regards to development when prioritising the community of Longyearbyen and make it visible to the world.
The Svalbard Liberal Party wants to:
- Increase the level of dialogue directed towards central authorities and parties to influence decisions affecting the local community
- Highlight the unique position Svalbard holds in the Arctic and actively work to make this national importance play a larger role in the decision process affecting the community of Longyearbyen
- Be an active partner, advisor and team player in the shaping and practice of Norway’s Svalbard politics