Espoo Sports and Exercise Committee’s decisions on 13 June 2024
At its June meeting, the Sports and Exercise Committee approved the first interim report on the 2024 budget and strategy. In addition, it discussed the council initiative on mountain biking trails and a resident’s initiative on a tour skating track on Lake Bodominjärvi and responded to a question posed by the Ombudsman for Equality as to how gender diversity is taken into consideration.
The Sports and Exercise Committee will issue an opinion on the investment framework for 2025–2034 at its August meeting.
A council initiative submitted in February 2022 proposes that the city should examine the diversity and sufficiency of mountain biking trails in Espoo and, if necessary, take measures to increase the number of trails.
In its response, the committee states that the increasing popularity of mountain biking and the health benefits support the need to develop and increase trails. The planning process will be steered by a working group with members from different sectors, including experts in planning, geotechnical engineering, nature conservation and sports.
There are currently two marked mountain biking trails in Espoo. The Central Park trail is maintained all year round, also in the winter whenever possible. The other trail is located in the Oittaa recreational area. The built trail is about 2.5 kilometres long. The Helsinki-Uusimaa Outdoors Association (Uuvi) is responsible for the development of Reitti 2000 (Route 2000) with the aim of creating a mountain biking trail from the Finnish Nature Centre Haltia in Nuuksio all the way to Oittaa. Uuvi is in charge of the planning and building of the route.
The committee took note of the response to a resident’s initiative. The initiative created at kuntalaisaloite.fi requested a tour skating track as well as routes for skiing and walking on Lake Bodominjärvi. A tour skating track is created on the ice whenever weather conditions are suitable. The track requires daily maintenance and, due to the challenging lake conditions, a lot of water rises on the surface between the ice and snow.
The City of Espoo will continue to maintain the ice when the conditions and human resources are sufficient. The city is also investigating whether external parties could help maintain the tour skating track.
The committee also took note of the supplemented response to a question posed by the Ombudsman for Equality as to how gender diversity is taken into consideration in the city’s sports and exercise services. The city has a plan and practices in place for sports facilities and services, defining the concrete measures to prevent discrimination and harassment based on a person’s gender identity or gender expression. These measures include providing gender-neutral changing rooms whenever possible, drawing up safer space principles and staff training.
All meeting topics and decisions(external link, opens in a new window) (in Finnish)