At the end of January, a fire destroyed large parts of Junglinster's town hall. / © Maxime Gillen / RTL
The damage is extensive. The town hall cannot be used anymore, the commune had to move and the premises need to be renovated completely.
On 26 January of this year - shortly after midnight - Junglinster’s municipal hall burned down. It took 36 hours until the fire was extinguished. The reason as to why the fire ignited has become known in the meantime, yet the renovation works are only slowly progressing.
Carine Lemmer talked to the mayor of Junglinster about the incident and its consequences.
Listen to the Luxembourgish audio here:
Three of the commune’s premises have been "hollowed out", explains the mayor Ben Ries. The insurance procedures are complicated and the renovation works are progressing haltingly.
“Naturally this isn’t good for the house. The house isn’t 100% shut, but it was closed provisionally. There was a lot of rain which made its way into the house. This means that the damage and degradation of the building have increased progressively.”
That is one of the reasons why the renovation should progress faster. The insurance company gave out a loan of one million euros relatively quickly, but the building site itself is complex. The buildings need to be renovated differently. The fire didn’t reach the rear end, yet the excessive humidity meant that the technical services also had to move to the nearby shopping center Laangwiss and into other offices. Ben Ries hopes they will only have to stay there until next year.
“We are convinced that until then the building where the fungi was in, housing the technical services, will be usable again. We should be able to bring that part back up to standard, so that the services can move back in.”
At the end of this year or the beginning of next year, a part of the communal building could thus be used again. When will the whole town hall be functional again?
According to the mayor, “nevertheless, one adapts one’s hopes to realism. I reckon we can fully move back in at the latest in 2028.”
2028 would mark the end of the renovation works on Junglinster’s town hall. In the meantime, the communal services will stay in an office building at Lënster Bierg. It was luck and preliminary organisation considering that the “social office” was meant to move there, for now they will have to work in container buildings.
The fire in January ignited because of renovation works. It is also known which firm is held accountable for the incident, so no tax money is going to finance the new renovations.
“We talked to a lawyer about this, and he agreed with us that it should primarily be the case that this is not our fault, so the buildings will be newly erected without the commune having to spend extra money”.
Building houses like a few years ago is not possible any longer. There are new regulations to be followed. Whether the insurance company will finance additional charges is still to be seen.
There was significant damage caused by the fire. / © Commune de Junglinster via Facebook
