Lashing out at noise pollution and the “massive” traffic of vehicles, residents of La Barben (Bouches-du-Rhône) sued the Rocher Mistral theme park on Tuesday, a sort of “Provencal Puy du Fou” open this summer.
The
"bucolic"
place
which breathed
"tranquility"
has turned into a
"nightmare"
since July 1: the neighbors of the Château Rocher Mistral live in an
"open-air disco"
, denounced Tuesday the applicants' lawyer , Me Jean-Marc Descoubès.
Two families, one owner of seven houses that it has rented and another living in La Barben, a small village of some 800 inhabitants located near Salon-de-Provence, attacked SAS Rocher Mistral in summary proceedings before the court. judiciary of Aix-en-Provence. They ask him to suspend the musical activities of the park, as well as the use of the adjoining car park and finally the operation of the vegetable garden while waiting for the required impact studies to be provided and the compliance work carried out.
In their summons, the applicants indeed reproach the entrepreneur Vianney d'Alençon, who had bought the castle of La Barben on December 30, 2019, of having carried out development work for a year without authorization.
This work had started when a prefectural decree of July 2020 asked to provide a noise impact study vis-à-vis residents, an assessment of the road traffic induced by the park, or the quantification of the impacts of the project on the biodiversity.
The promoter of the park was also refused by municipal decree these developments, some of which are located on a site classified as a historic monument, but also for lack of an impact study.
"Noise pollution is at a perfectly acceptable level"
Maître Chabert, lawyer for the Parc du Rocher mistral
"We are enunciating enormities which do not correspond at all to reality"
, pleaded the lawyer of the SAS, Me Alexis Chabert, according to whom the applicants
"had no interest in acting"
since, not living on the premises, they were not subjected to the supposed noise pollution, unlike their tenants.
"The noise pollution is at a perfectly acceptable level"
, insisted Me Chabert, indicating that a bailiff had come the day before the trial to carry out acoustic measurements, the results of which will be returned within
"ten days"
.
The court will render its decision in this so-called “emergency” procedure on October 12.
With its seven daily shows, its Provencal market and two restaurants, Rocher Mistral, named in tribute to the poet and Nobel Prize for literature Frédéric Mistral, hopes to attract 150,000 spectators from 2021, with around 400 direct and indirect jobs at stake, according to his promoters.
This project, which required 30 million euros of investment, received financial support from the region and the department, to the tune of seven million euros.
President of the Departmental Council of Bouches-du-Rhône, Martine Vassal (LR) had defended this “Puy du Fou de Provence” during her campaign for mayor of Marseille in 2020.
