Year-round maintenance in the European Green Capital, Lahti

In 2021, Lahti was chosen as the European Green Capital, and the first Finnish city to receive the recognition. The city offers a diverse and, due to the hills in the area, challenging environment from an environmental maintenance perspective. The dense urban environment and streetside parking make snow removal and storage challenging at times. The busy traffic in the city centre also highlights the importance of paying special attention to safety.

The contract was focused around two areas: road work and green space maintenance. In winter, we performed snow removal, de-icing, levelling of packed snow, snow clearance, desanding and maintained skating rinks. In the summer, we maintained green spaces and paved areas. We were also responsible for the Market Square Christmas tree in Lahti, which we cut down as per the customer’s directions, set up on the Market Square and ultimately transported away. The year-round contract covered cleaning for the city centre, flag-raising, the machinery and equipment and the maintenance of traffic signs and signalling.

The international Lahti Ski Games are organised in Lahti every year in February–March. During the Lahti Ski Games, we performed traffic control and winter maintenance, such as de-icing and snow clearance also in areas that were not covered by the basic contract.

We performed contract work according to the needs of our customers, with the aim of maintaining a safe and comfortable environment. We kept the residents in the area up to speed through timely communications and participate in joint voluntary work of the residents, among other things. The residents could monitor the maintenance work through the Lahden kaupunkiympäristö Facebook group and the local paper.