Norwegian demolition man stands accused of stealing entire tower block
DemolitionNews has been granted exclusive access to leaked court documents relating to a case pending in Norway in which a contractor stands accused of stealing a tower block he had been employed to demolish. The local authority claims that the contractor dismantled the block and has subsequently reassembled it at the rear of his own house.
According to the local authority, contractor Olaf Ropli was chosen specifically for the high levels of recycling he had promised as part of his tender submission. “The contract to demolish the block attracted a total of seven bids, and there was very little to choose between them in terms of price,” says Morten Pedersen of the Molby prefecture. “But Ropli assured us that he could achieve a recycling rate of 100 percent.”
Pedersen says that the local authority’s concerns were first raised when the demolition of the six-storey block took several months longer than anticipated. “One of our building inspectors visited the site and was surprised to see the building being cut into pieces. Admittedly, we are not demolition experts but we had never seen a method quite like it,” Pedersen continues. “But when we challenged him, he said it was all part of his recycling process. It was only when one of our waste management employees reported that Ropli was dumping a large number of empty industrial adhesive containers on an almost daily basis that we began to realise just what his recycling method entailed.”
In what could be a landmark case, Ropli claims he was well within his rights to recycle the arisings from the site as he saw fit. “The local authority made no stipulation on how the materials could or should be recycled, nor did they place any time restrictions on the contract. I have a large family and plenty of land so this seemed like an ideal solution for everyone.”
The relocation of the tower block was not without its problems however. “The first issue was one of storage,” Ropli says. “For obvious reasons, we had to dismantle the building from the top down but we couldn’t start to reassemble it until we had the ground floor sections delivered. You would be surprised just how much room a tower block takes up.”
And the problems didn’t end there. “It soon became clear that our expertise lies in deconstruction and not construction. Taking the building to pieces was easy; putting it back together again was a nightmare, particularly matching the wallpaper,” he says. “At one point, we had an elevator shaft and an interior stairwell on the outside of the building. With hindsight, we probably should have numbered the sections.”
Ropli says he plans to fight the case and believes that, in addition to the shortcomings and loopholes in the local authority’s tender process, he holds a humanitarian trump card. “My children and some of their friends have already moved into the tower block so the local authority is effectively fighting to render people homeless. If there is any justice in this country, that will simply not be allowed,” Ropli concludes. “This is a test case and one that could impact upon European law. I am fighting this case not just for me but for the entire demolition industry.”
