Complex Development Programme for the Balaton Region

Abstract

This chapter analyzes a complex development program for the Balaton region. Planning for the development of the Balaton region started relatively early in the history of Hungarian planned economy, and had already begun in the early 1950s. In the course of this work, various regional analyses were made and in 1957 the Balaton Regional Plan was drawn up, in which the limits of the area for recreation and tourism were drawn and land use was regulated. The plan was approved by a resolution of the Council of Ministers. The same resolution created the Balaton Executive Commission, composed of deputy ministers, to co-ordinate the complex development tasks of the Balaton region. In the Balaton Regional Plan provisions were made for environmental protection, for the regulation of the water level, for the reduction of siltation and for the prevention of industrial waste waters from entering the lake. In the plan, measures aimed at protecting the beauty of the natural landscape also found a place; to protect the recreational area and the landscape, the quarrying of basalt in the Badacsony mountain was stopped and several other quarries were also closed down.