The memorial bridge near Velké Meziříčí is neither wanted by the city nor the state

Velké Meziříčí (Žďársko) - The historically protected bridge near the waste dump not far from Velké Meziříčí is not owned by the city or the state. The dispute over the determination of ownership has dragged on for years. The State Attorney's Office for Property Affairs is appealing to the Supreme Court against the regional court's verdict, which assigned the decaying monument to the Czech Republic. Ivo Popelka, the director of the Brno office of the agency, told ČTK today. The bridge no longer leads anywhere. It served as a road until the 1940s, when the road was redirected elsewhere.
    Popelka stated that the agency would argue with the reasoning of the judgment. "To put it simply, so far there has been no documentation based on any documents that (the bridge) should belong to the state at all," he said.
    The bridge is located near the village of Petráveč and has been a cultural monument since 1987. No one wanted to take care of the bridge in the wilderness. In 2012, the district court in Žďár nad Sázavou determined in a dispute between Velké Meziříčí, the village of Petráveč, and the state that Velké Meziříčí was the owner of the monument. This verdict was changed on December 4 last year by the Regional Court in Brno, with the appeal by Velké Meziříčí being addressed by its branch in Jihlava. An appeal could be filed within two months of the delivery of the judgment.
    Radovan Necid, the mayor of Velké Meziříčí (ODS), told ČTK that the previous city council decided to file the appeal, although the city councilors had previously narrowly agreed that the city could start taking care of the bridge. "The state doesn't want it either, so we'll see how it turns out," he noted.
    The masonry single-arch bridge spans the valley of the Radslavický stream and was once part of the old provincial road to Brno. It was probably built by the builder Antonín Vlach in 1593, although according to other sources it is a slightly younger structure. It was nicknamed "high" or "robber's." Today, there is no road leading to it.