Plans for Surf Park at Elfrather See in Krefeld Move Forward
Photo: Courtesy of Stadt Krefeld
(eap) A surf park with a campsite, gastronomy, sports and leisure offerings is planned to be built on an area of around nine hectares at Lake Elfrath in Krefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The private company Elakari intends to invest around 30 million euros in the surfing facility (cf. our special feature published in EAP 2/2021). The surf lagoon will cover an area of 2.5 hectares and will be divided into two halves by a 200-meter-long jetty. The facility, which will be equipped with Wavegarden technology, will generate up to 1,000 waves per hour. Waves as small as half a meter and as high as 1.95 meters can be produced, making the facility suitable for both beginners and professionals. In addition to the large surf pool, there will be small pools for warming up and training.
“For Krefeld, such a park would be a fantastic leisure offer that would have an appeal far beyond the city limits. We would like to wake up the sleeping
E Lake beauty. The surf park should be the initial ignition,” said the mayor of the city of Krefeld, Frank Meyer. “As a sports city, Krefeld offers perfect conditions for the surf park, also due to the other water sports in the immediate vicinity. The good location and connections ensure a large catchment area in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region and in neighboring countries,” highlights Andreas Niedergesäss, managing director of the investor company Elakari.
In addition to the surfing facility, there will be areas for beach soccer, volleyball, pump track and climbing. Overall, the area at Lake Elfrath will be regenerated in the coming years as part of the “Masterplan Elfrather See” developed by the city. This includes, among other things, the reactivation of the bathing lake as well as freely available sports and leisure facilities. Some concerns about the surf park project were expressed by the population, primarily about issues such as climate and environment as well as an increased traffic volume. A request of the left, free voters and several individual representatives was submitted, who wanted to obtain an early procedure stop for the project. This motion was rejected this week by the city council by a clear majority (33:22 votes) in a secret ballot. The procedure for preparing the resolution on the statutes can thus continue. ■
