At its regular session today, the local parliament supported the Mayor Stefan Radev’s proposal that the Municipality provide the Ministry of Health for management of six decares of land in the area of the former Birshen Airport. There, the ministry plans to build a HEMS operational base, which will be a hangar and site for the needs of the air medical emergency system.

“This is the HEMS main operating base where the helicopter will be housed and will take off to provide emergency care to casualties. Initially, this project was scheduled, with the one center in South-Eastern Bulgaria planned to be in Yambol. Back then, the idea of the current Minister of Transport, Georgi Gvozdeikov, was to build this base in Sliven, not in Yambol. As far as I know, a total of five such operational bases are to be built in South-Eastern Bulgaria,” Mayor Stefan Radev told journalists. In this regard, he drew attention to the fact that the big hospitals in Sliven are building landing pads for helicopters from which to receive injured persons.

“The construction of this base will in no way affect our intentions regarding the Industrial Park. These 6 decares are a stand-alone property and are part of the larger 1,500 – decacre site that is not included in the first phase of the Industrial Park development. The runway of the airport will not be affected either,” the mayor of Sliven was categorical.

The planned new industrial zone covers 2,500 decares of the Burshen airport area and is divided into three zones – two for industrial development and the airport runway, which will be able to function. The first stage of the industrial zone is planned to take place on the northern terrain on an area of 450 decares. The municipality has no intention of selling the airstrip, as well as the motocross track.