Citizens of Pirot find “valley variant” of Corridor 10 through their city acceptable

- “Municipality of Pirot finds the valley variant of the highway acceptable” is the conclusion from the meeting between the municipal management and the representatives of company “Corridor 10” and the Institute of Roads – it was said at the press conference. The Mayor of Pirot, Vladan Vasić, said to the press that he expected the board members of the Town Hall to take that variant in consideration, and that it would be acceptable to all.

- We insisted on low minimum that will be requested by our municipality in order for the valley variant to be acceptable in general. The result of this meeting is not that it is accepted, but acceptable. We still need to hear the opinions of the board members of the Town Hall. Company “Corridor 10" and the Institute of Roads will do all the design work, and they need to prove us that they accepted our comments. The Government of Serbia, that is, the National Council for Infrastructure, will make the decision about final variant of the highway – the hill or the valley one – says Vasić.

Vasić says that it was accepted at the meeting that the construction of alternative road should be an integral part of the construction of highway, and that its construction should be financed by the state. The cloverleaf interchange towards Dimitrovgrad will be relocated, the existing bypass around Pirot will become the left lane of the highway, while the plans will be drawn for completely new parallel road-bypass around Pirot. Tunnel Sarlah, at the entrance to Pirot from the direction of Niš, as well as the bridge behind the tunnel, will stay in their place.

In accordance with the General land-utilization plan for the industrial zone in Pirot, a parallel branch will be built in order to connect this zone with the highway, and the scrapyard that is situated in that area will be relocated. The Žukovo bridge will not be built, but the section to Bela Palanka will get two new bridges. At the same time, a valid access to new sanitarian regional dump will be provided.

- Regardless of which highway variant is selected, the citizens of our municipality have no reason to worry. This highway is necessary for development of the municipality of Pirot and Serbia. We will have much benefit from the construction of this very important junction. We will do our best to protect the interests of citizens in the best possible way. We had in mind to provide an alternative road for the citizens and make it possible for them to use this non-commercial road to reach Niš. As we insisted, that alternative road should enable access to cultivable fields and undisturbed flow of suburban and city traffic. We also insisted that the bypass around Pirot should stay, and that the alternative road should not go through the center of the city. This is, in our opinion, the maximum we could get in these talks. We got all that we asked for - says Vasić.