Five minutes of vandalism. Bill: DKK 200,000

The last stone for 80 steps was just laid last week. But only a few hours later someone thought it was funny to throw 25 kilo pieces of concrete down the stairs as if they were a bowling alley.

It couldn’t stand it. And the bill to make good the vandalism will be high.

The episode took place over the weekend and the craftsmen who had been building the stairs over the past weeks discovered it when they arrived on Monday morning.

So far, no one seems to have heard or seen when the three heavy stones were thrown down the stairs here.
Photo: Lars Pauli

Then they stood below the stairs and could see both stones and traces of splintered steps 15 meters up.

– We don’t know who did it. But we really want to know if it is someone we can hold responsible. Because it will be expensive to repair. Really expensive, says Jens Røndbjerg Jeppesen, who is the municipality’s project manager for the extensive work.

Waiting for insurance

The stairs run down a slope behind the station in Hobro. In the future, it will connect the neighborhood behind the slope more directly with the platforms. A project for a total of around DKK 37 million.

The most expensive part is a walkway with elevators that will go up later this year.

The stairs were the first part to be completely finished. But now that part of the work has stopped. And it is unlikely to start again before Mariagerfjord Municipality has finished talking to the insurance company. This can take months.

– The damage probably doesn’t look like much. You can walk on the stairs, but there are large pieces of steps all around. But we have to peel back a lot of the steps to get to the ones that are damaged. And then it has to be recast before the new steps are put on, explains the project manager.

– It will cost 150,000 to 200,000 kroner to repair the damage, he estimates.

While the work with the stairs has moved to the desks of damage experts, the pavers have now moved to work on a 300-metre long path for people with walking difficulties and road users on wheels.

Demanding vandalism

It was stones from the wall here that were peeled down and transported to the stairs 15 meters away. Jens Røndbjerg Jeppesen assesses that the vandalism was not completely spontaneous.
Photo: Lars Pauli

As said, it is not clear who is behind the vandalism. But they haven’t just reacted to a moment’s intervention:

– They took three stones weighing 25-30 kilos each, carried them 15 meters and then threw them down, Jens Røndbjerg Jeppesen reconstructs the process.

As I said, he hopes that someone will come forward with information about who is behind it. The area can be seen from Hobro’s berry quarter, and perhaps surveillance cameras at the station have caught something on top of the hill now that there are no leaves on the trees.

the damages are of course duly documented to the insurance company. But work on the stairs is at a standstill until the compensation is settled.
Photo: Lars Pauli

The plan is for the entire project to be completed by 1 October. If the insurance allows.