A FAMILY will be left homeless when their house is flattened to make way for a new motorway bridge.
Ersan Acar and three generations of his family have lived under the Rahmede bridge in Lüdenscheid, Germany, since 2010 but the authorities have given them just six months to find a new place.
The eye-sore structure hovers some 80 metres above his home and is part of the busy A45 which has been shut since for three months for essential repairs.
“They want to buy the house from me and tear everything down,” Ersan told the German Press Agency.
“They told me that the bridge should be blown up in six months.”
Ersan owns a good 700 metre plot that Autobahn GmbH also wants to acquire.
“They showed me a plan. My house and a company next to it are particularly badly affected.”
In 2018, Ersan was assured by authorities that they had no plans to start construction any time soon and so he ploughed thousands of euros into renovating his home.
He installed a new roof, fenced off the entire property for his children and even converted his attic so his in-laws could move in.
“The bridge didn’t break overnight,” he said.
The Rahmede motorway bridge shut in December and is an important thoroughfare in Germany bringing traffic from Dortmund in the country’s north down to Bavaria in the south.
The closure has led to crippling detours that continues to devastate the local economy of South Westphalia.
On Monday, the federal minister for transport, Volker Wissing, announced the bridge would be blown up to make way for a new one.
“In this way we can save a considerable amount of time and advance the processes for a new construction of the bridge more quickly,” the German politician explained.
But Ersan fears Autobahn GmbH won’t pay him out for the true value of property.
“The bridge needs to be rebuilt. That’s clear and I don’t want to get in the way. I don’t care about the money either. But I had so many dreams and goals,” he said.
But a spokesman for the Westphalia branch of Autobahn GmbH claims Ersan wasn’t told he had to “vacate his house” and that he – along with neighbours in the area – were given a list of options including the “temporary use” of their home to being bought out.
Autobahn GmbH said the construction could take as long as five years to complete and understands if families don’t wish to stay around.
But Ersan claims he wasn’t presented with any alternatives.
The family man said he wasn’t prepared to sacrifice his hard-earned standard of living and the place housing three generations of his family.
“If you provide us with an equivalent three-family house with a garden in Lüdenscheid, I’ll be there.
“I expect empathy. And that it is taken into account how badly we were hit.”
