DC STYRSÖ
www.styrso.goteborg.se
Styrsö is committed to encouraging year-round residence on the islands, partly aided by EU funding. During the year extensive maintenance was also carried out on roads, and a further three landing sites were created for the rescue helicopter. Investments have also been made in new technology in various areas, including the home help service.
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| The first figure is for the district and the second for Göteborg in total during 2002, unless otherwise stated. | ||
| No. of inhabitants | 4,504 | (474,877) |
| Percentage of children 0–15 | 22.6 | (17.3) |
| Percentage of pensioners over 65 | 15.9 | (14.7) |
| Average income, KSEK (over 16) 2000 | 173.0 | (174.6) |
| Percentage of job applicants 18–64 | 1.6 | (4.1) |
| Percentage of people with higher education (20–64) 2001 | 37.8 | (38.9) |
| Percentage of gainfully employed (20–64) 2000 | 80.0 | (69.5) |
| Percentage on social security benefits | 2.2 | (9.5) |
| Social security benefits paid, SEK per inhabitant* | 481 | (2,128) |
| * Excl. introduction remuneration. | ||
Around 15,000 square metres of resurfacing work has been carried out during the year. This corresponds to 12 per cent of the total road area in the district. With a resurfacing cycle of 20 years this is equivalent to just over two years of planned resurfacing work. The considerable costs of such work cannot normally be covered by the annual budget of the resource committee. In previous years a budget surplus was therefore built up to cover this year’s resurfacing costs, which amounted to SEK 1m and were financed by drawing on equity.
Landing sites for the rescue helicopter were built on Köpstadsö, Styrsö and Vrångö during the year.
The fine weather last summer meant that the number of visitors to bathing sites in the archipelago broke all records. In addition to visitors in their own boats, Styrsöbolaget reported over 246,000 passengers on its regular services during August 2002. This is an increase of 29 per cent in comparison with the same month in 2001. Out of the total number of journeys made, permanent residents account for around 110,000 journeys in each of the winter months.
In the southern archipelago there are sixteen bathing sites on the islands that are occupied all year round. On Vrångö two bathing sites are managed by the West Coast Foundation (Västkuststiftelsen), and on Styrsö there are two bathing sites run by the City. Elsewhere, the bathing sites are managed by associations on the various islands. The district committee is responsible for refuse collection and sewage disposal from public toilets, and gives grants for management, cleansing and some maintenance. At certain sites, the capacity of refuse bins and toilets was inadequate, and this led to some sanitation problems. The associations can no longer rely on voluntary efforts to look after bathing sites and must instead pay for these services. Considerable resources were invested to keep the situation tolerable, but it will be necessary to increase capacity at the bathing sites in the future.
The District Committee of Styrsö took over responsibility for providing the home help service on 1 January 2002. A new organization was formed during the year to safeguard quality and to ensure effective collaboration between the various units in the district.
All nurses and rehabilitation staff who work in the various areas of the service belong to a unit. Close cooperation with primary care services during the year has made it possible to offer home nursing care twenty-four hours a day. It has also been possible to provide night-time support on Styrsö and Donsö. On the other islands temporary solutions have had to be provided as required.
The three different sectors of primary care, home help and home nursing care have collaborated with each other in the district for several years following a project to initiate collaboration. A new project was introduced in autumn 2002 to further improve communication and collaboration. This means that all home help and home nursing care staff on Styrsö and Donsö can now communicate with each other using palmtop computers. The project will be evaluated in 2003.
Brännöskolan has a special site on Galterö that is looked after by pupils and staff of the school. Several times a year they clear the area of brush and measure mussels as part of their nature conservation project.
Once a week, pre-school children aged 4–5 visit a site on Brännö, where they play, observe the changes in nature, and eat packed lunches. The site has a camping area with a wind break that parents helped to build.
For almost two years now the school and pre-school on Vrångö have been working on a project to encourage language development among children and young people. All the staff work with language in different forms as a continuous theme in teaching. The work is guided by Rigmor Lindö from Göteborg University.
The archipelago’s young people’s council has set up an IT café in cooperation with the IT club. The café is run by young people aged 16–20 through the IT café association. It is currently open two days a week to non-members. The opening hours are divided into activities for young visitors and activities for older visitors. The café is funded through the youth initiative and through the EU Objective 2 Islands programme.
A pre-school service is now provided on Köpstadsö. Five children have daily pre-school places under a scheme in which one childminder looks after the children of three families.
Work has begun on the expansion of the fishing harbour on Vrångö, which plays a major role in ensuring that the island can continue to develop as a place to live all year round. Vrångö fishing harbour association has been working for many years on a project to build a new fishing harbour outside the existing harbour. The current fishing harbour will be used to provide berths for visiting small boats and for leisure boats belonging to residents of Vrångö. The project will give the southern archipelago access to a good visitor harbour. As a result of work to widen and lower the level of access roads to Göteborg, large amounts of blasted rock will be available. The Swedish Maritime Administration and the Port of Göteborg are supplying this stone to Vrångö for use in constructing the fishing harbour. The fishing harbour association has been granted funds from the EU Objective 2 Islands programme. An application has also been made to the National Board of Fisheries for a grant to support the project.