Rokycany will build a lookout tower for 5 million, the EU will contribute to it

Rokycany - The fourteen-thousand-strong town of Rokycany will begin construction this year on a nearly thirty-meter tall observation tower on Mount Kotel. Tourists will be able to see the entire Rokycansko area from there starting in April next year, reaching as far as Šumava. The town hall has obtained over four million korunas from the European program ROP Southwest, which covers 85 percent of the costs; the rest will be paid by the city. This was stated by Mayor Vladimír Šmolík (ČSSD).
    The observation tower aims to boost tourism in what was previously a significantly industrial city, the third largest in the Plzeň region. It will be the only one in the Rokycansko area. "People have been asking for it. Rokycany needs such an attraction," stated Šmolík.
    The town hall has already selected a contractor. The twenty-eight meter tall iron structure will be built very quickly, according to Šmolík. A spiral staircase will lead up to the viewing platform at a height of 25 meters.
    All the land around the planned tower is city-owned. "We do not want people to drive to the observation tower. It is a tourist attraction and we want them to come from the industrial zone, i.e., from Božena Němcová street. It is about 800 meters to the base of the hill and an additional 700 meters uphill," said the mayor. The city is not currently considering a parking lot. A limited number of parking spaces are available on the right side of the road to Veselá.
    Rokycany lies in a valley beneath four hills. Kotel, with its height of 575 meters above sea level and located about five kilometers from the city center, is the second highest after Žďár. The Kotel hill, which is entirely managed by the city forests, is, according to the mayor, the best spot for the observation tower. "Čilina is wooded and there is already a mobile operator's mast there, and Žďár is further away from Rokycany," he noted. On the distant Vršíček stands a baroque pilgrimage church.
    The observation tower will be built on the site of the original twenty-five-meter wooden tower, Beautiful View, which was constructed by a tourist club in 1895 and lasted 15 years. Until the 1960s, there was a military steel mast with aircraft lighting on top of the hill. Even before World War I, the city wanted to build an observation tower on Žďár. The nearest tourist towers are in Plzeň at Sylván, Chlum, and Krkavec, and in Central Bohemia at Třemšín.