Confusion about controversial Walk of fame street in Bergen

Since 2015, Nøstegaten in Bergen has been decorated with various plaques in the cobblestones to honor famous people.

Now it appears that neither the municipality nor the county council has given any written permission for the project.

Walk of Fame organizer Roger Iversen claims he has been given verbal permission to establish the street, and that the municipality’s then Green Agency was involved in the inspection, writes The Bergen newspaper.

Several have reacted after John Fredriksen and Bruce Springsteen have been awarded their own star cobblestone, and have asked questions about what it takes to get one, and who decides.

It turns out that it is Roger Iversen who decides this alone. In 2009, he bought several listed and dilapidated 17th-century houses from the municipality in exchange for restoring them, and in 2015 created the Walk of Fame street outside the row of houses.

But it is not the municipality, but Vestland County Council that owns the street. The county council has also not registered any agreement or information, and was not aware that cobblestones had been laid in the street by private actors.

Chief engineer Geir Sverre Andreassen in the county council says on a general basis that such an application must be made, and cannot say what will happen to the cobblestones that have been laid down.

It is part of history that both the mayor and other representatives from the municipality have participated when new star stones have been laid – also when John Fredriksen got his.