Dresden will attempt to prevent the construction of the controversial bridge

Dresden - The city of Dresden will attempt to use legal means to prevent the construction of a bridge over the Elbe, which threatens the deletion of 20 kilometers of Elbe embankments from the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage list. The city will file complaints against the construction of the bridge near the Forest Castle as soon as possible, in accordance with the relevant decision of the city council from Thursday evening, announced Dresden city hall spokesman Kai Schulz today, according to the DPA agency.
    The city parliament resolved on Thursday that the Dresden mayor must file a lawsuit at the Saxon Constitutional Court in Leipzig, thus attempting to overturn the decision of the Higher Administrative Court of the federal state of Saxony, which greenlit the project less than two weeks ago. The second appeal will aim directly at the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe.
    If the bridge were to be built in Dresden, the city would face the risk of losing its title as a World Heritage site for the Elbe embankments. This title was granted to it by UNESCO only three years ago.
    The Saxon Administrative Court ordered the construction of the bridge, referring to the decision of citizens, who expressed 68 percent support for the bridge in a local referendum in 2005. The Dresden Building Authority has also already issued the necessary permits.
    The dispute over the bridge has been ongoing for several years. The new river crossing was demanded by a civic initiative aiming to divert part of the transit traffic from the central part of the city. It was also supported by the Saxon state government.
    According to experts, the bridge would disrupt the baroque silhouette of the city, recently painstakingly completed with the reconstruction of the Church of Our Lady (Frauenkirche), which was destroyed during World War II.
    UNESCO has never removed any of the 830 listed sites in 138 countries from its list, although it has threatened to do so in various cases.