A farmer in Poland ploughed up some freshly laid tarmac. He’s now in for a world of trouble (VIDEO)
In Poland, a farmer’s dispute with the local council over a road did not end in a protest or a legal battle, but with furrows ploughed into the fresh tarmac. In Gliwice, a 60-year-old farmer drove his “Ursus” tractor onto the recently resurfaced Rybacka Street and ploughed up approximately 200 metres of the new road surface.
The farmer claimed that the road had been built across his land.
The man now faces charges of destroying property of significant value, and the public prosecutor’s office has submitted a request to the court to remand him in custody for three months.
In Poland, such an offence carries a prison sentence of between one and ten years.
The incident took place on the afternoon of 7 August. The farmer drove his “Ursus” tractor, to which a plough was attached, onto the freshly laid tarmac and ploughed up around 200 metres of the road. The police arrested the man at the scene.
The road maintenance crew themselves prevented the farmer from causing even greater damage by using construction machinery to block the tractor’s path.
The damage caused by the farmer is preliminarily estimated at approximately 400,000 zlotys, or around 93,000 euros. The damage amounts to approximately 2,000 euros per metre of road destroyed. Furthermore, it was not only the tarmac that was damaged, but also the road’s structural base.
The farmer explained his actions by claiming that the road belonged to him and that the repair works had been carried out unlawfully. However, the city’s road authority categorically rejected these claims. According to the authority, the entire length of Rybacka Street belongs to the municipality of Gliwice – it is not a private road and no part of it belongs to the farmer.
Another unpleasant fact emerged in the case: the impounded tractor did not have the compulsory third-party liability insurance. The police towed it to a secure car park. The farmer was sober at the time of the incident.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office views the situation as far more serious than a mere dispute over the use of land or a road. The man has been charged with the destruction of property of significant value, and the prosecutor, having assessed the case file, has decided to ask the court to order three months’ pre-trial detention.
This incident attracted a great deal of attention after a video went viral online showing a tractor using a plough to tear up the newly laid road surface. In Gliwice, it is claimed that local residents had been waiting for this repair for several years, so the deliberate destruction of the new surface caused even greater public outrage.
Katarzyna Kuczyńska-Budka, the mayor of Gliwice, has stated that this man had previously vandalised public property. However, the specific circumstances of the previous incidents and their legal assessment are yet to be determined by the relevant authorities.
This story has become a striking example in Poland of how a dispute over land or the right to carry out works can escalate into a very costly conflict.
