Funds for its restoration are not planned in this year’s budget
We wrote about Šibenik’s amazing fort restoration projects on several occasions, and while this city is basing its entire branding around these historic buildings, Split has forgotten about his very own forts. On March 18, 2016, president of the Lučac Manuš district assembly Tanja Belohradsky talked to Dalmacija News and urged the city authorities to do something about the derelict historic Gripe fort that towers over this city district.
Gripe fort is a cultural monument owned by the City of Split. Unfortunately the city never invested a single kuna in its maintenance and despite the fact that it houses numerous institutions including the Split Naval Museum. Gripe Fortress is a baroque Venetian fort built in just 8 months in the 17th century as one of the main defense structures against the Ottomans so it had great strategic importance. Following the decision by the Ministry of Culture, it was placed under preventive protection in 2006, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is actually protecting it from its greatest enemy – time.
“This fort is a heritage building and yet, the city is not looking after it and this is another year in which funds have not been allocated for its refurbishment. The building is now potentially dangerous because of the state it’s in because the area has no public lighting and it is covered with high grass. Trees have started to grow from the walls, greatly endangering the structure of the building. Furthermore, public sports pitch that was constructed back in the 1960s was never refurbished and it presents a danger to the kids and adults. The city has an obligation to look after its historical building so I am using this opportunity to remind them of their duties once again. A meeting was held back in 2015 on the safety in this area and it was concluded that the Cultural office and Communal office have to appoint a custodian, define jurisdiction and propose a technical solution to improve safety and overall quality of life in this area. Unfortunately, we still haven’t received an answer and as we were able to see, no funds were allocated for the gripe fort in the city budget for 2016 which makes me very sad since it shows our city officials really don’t care about the protection of our cultural heritage” Tanja Belohradsky stated.
Maybe the Split city officials can organise an educational visit to Šibenik so they can learn about Šibenik’s experiences and their very efficient methods of withdrawing EU funds for the restoration of their forts.
