The Strategic Plan

The city of Hradec Králové is a compound and developing organism, which structures need defining aims and strategies. Otherwise is would be at the mercy of the world round presses of subjects whose targets have not been set clearly.

ABOUT THE STRATEGIC PLAN GENERALLY

The strategic plan together with a city budget and the development plan consist of the most important documents for planning and town development. Recently the present methods dealing separately with particular branches of human activities (especially economics, the environment, housing, social policy and local-technical aspects) have seemed not to comply with demands on complete solutions to the cities’ problems, getting increasingly difficult. The cities that have more than 100,000 inhabitants are compound organisms, which governing needs project managing and strategic planning.

It seems to be indisputable that the strategic plan for the town development is important and in the Czech environment it is undoubtedly proved way of mobilization of inside potential for the town development. We understand the strategic planning as a systematic way of creative process, how to organize modifications and form a wide consensus of both the public and private sectors in the whole society and a common vision of economic future of the town.

Strategic planning is a set of processes, that are not possible to omit, and that lead to set purposes, aims, strategies and own realization of these objects. In an initial phase a profound analysis and estimation of processes in the area of the town have to be done. The town is valued according to demographic features, economic situation, housing, technical and social infrastructure and contingent fields in relation to town’s specification. Further to this analytic part, some critical spheres are identified and additional analysis, that are aimed at defined critical spheres done. It is so called inside and outside analysis - SWOT. The inside part defines strong and weak sides (‘Strengths and Weaknesses’ –SW) and outside analysis discusses opportunities and threats (‘Opportunities and Threats’ – OT). Setting purposes, aims and strategies is another phase of work that leads to cast the concrete strategic plan.

The key point of the strategic planning is realization, that is totally in city’s hands, and that depends on marketing and promotional strategy. It also depends on abilities of political, communal and business representatives, if they are able to attract new recourses to the city economics.

Concrete work on the strategic plan of economic development of the city began in September 1999. The partnership between the private and public sectors has been included in the plan. Significant representatives of Hradec Králové’s companies, banks, schools, institutions and many others have been attached to this process.

From October 1999 till the end of the previous year all of the important analytic basis – The City’s Profile, The Survey of Entrepreneurial Environment and SWOT Analysis were compiled. These documents were used as the base for defining the basic critical spheres of the city’s development. The strategic plan of the city of Hradec Králové uses, on the one hand, a strong aspect of the city and on the other hand it endeavours to remove weak aspects. The whole plan has been aimed at these four critical spheres.

Economic development and vacancies

Both the financial support of present enterprises and attracting new straight investments, also developing and supporting small or medium enterprises are included in the problems of job opportunities and economic development of Hradec Králové. The development has to issue from the local strong aspects and traditions and it should bank on co-operation of both the private and public sectors, on attaching the local universities and the research base, and it should examine the transfer of technologies and estimate the possibility of arranging the Technological Park.

Transport 

 Hradec Králové’s priority seems to be solving questions connected with accesses to the motorway and the airport. Particular sorts of public transport from municipal, long-distance bus and railway to motor transport must be operated in accordance with population ’s demands on timely, high speed and accessible transfer from one place to another. In this field the importance of cycling and walking has not been omitted.

City’s image

Hradec Králové has geographically advantageous position – in the centre of the Czech Republic, so that the city is presupposed to be the heart of town and congress tourism. The institutional care of incoming tourism, reviving the heart of the city, organizing cultural and sports events or better offer of sports grounds and other amenities for the leisure time, these are all necessary steps to complete the premises. At the same time they are in harmony with interests of citizens and visitors of the city, as this infrastructure can serve for both groups.

Standard of the life 

The quality of the life is an essential measure among towns, which compete in attracting new or keeping the present investors. The reputation of the town, that is attractive for the life and work, affects deciding whether to expand here or there. And what is really important – the standard of the life and the image influence a demographic structure of towns’ population. Hradec Králové ’s representatives would like to stop all unfavourable demographic trends and aim to develop the town into a city that gains new citizens. This sphere deals with an offer of housing and ensuring other conditions for a pleasant life – education system, health service, security, social spheres and opportunities for spending the leisure time and recreation.

The Strategic Plan of the Economic Development of the city of Hradec Králové was authorized by the City Council on the 25th April 2000 and actualized on April 2001.