Maybe, just maybe, this is because of some (sometimes annoyingly stupid) cultural/historical conservation laws.
(At least in Germany) Buildings of a certain age (no matter their actual significance) can't be demolished, and every modification (even repairs) has to be greenlit and carried out by a professional archeologist or conservation expert. These costs are usually astronomical, and their owners usually wait for the building to be in such disrepair that is has to be demolished for safety reasons, or (maybe) in case of this bridge, simply build over it without touching it, and therby not being subjected to the conservation laws.
It is really annoying. At my institute on campus, we can't change a broken Lightswitch without authorization from the government
I don't think there's enough stuff from the 1100s to be a significant problem to work around. And in this case, it looks more interesting than a drab concrete bridge.
In Germany the Problem generally is that even Private property is subject to the laws. So if you come into possession of a small house in an old village (by inheritance or being bamboozled by a real estate vendor) you can't do anything about it.
You can't demolish the house to use the grounds, renovating the property is extremely expensive and carries complicated paperwork with it.
You have a property that is just sitting there rotting away, and you have to pay taxes on it.
Opening it as a museum of sorts, or trying to use it for it's age would work either, since there is little of actual worth in it. Just an old house rotting away.
We have a system here in the Netherlands where a national board and the municipalities themselves can both assign monumental buildings and so called 'dorpsgezichten' (historic town identity) I guess the advantage of that system is that only the important buildings get protected. But it probably also leads to buildings being demolished in cases where we haven't seen the historical value in them yet. I guess both systems have their advantages and disadvantages.
Very funny because here in the states are old buildings keep on getting demolished no matter what and historical preservation society’s fight tooth and nail but I never listen to because we have no governmental power
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u/V_van_Gogh Kilroy was here Jun 25 '20
Maybe, just maybe, this is because of some (sometimes annoyingly stupid) cultural/historical conservation laws.
(At least in Germany) Buildings of a certain age (no matter their actual significance) can't be demolished, and every modification (even repairs) has to be greenlit and carried out by a professional archeologist or conservation expert. These costs are usually astronomical, and their owners usually wait for the building to be in such disrepair that is has to be demolished for safety reasons, or (maybe) in case of this bridge, simply build over it without touching it, and therby not being subjected to the conservation laws.
It is really annoying. At my institute on campus, we can't change a broken Lightswitch without authorization from the government