This is a growing concern for sports shooting enthusiasts: practicing your art is becoming more and more complicated in Île-de-France.
To facilitate the practice, the Yvelines departmental council has just released a grant of 272,000 euros.
This substantial envelope - the project is around one million euros - will allow the construction by 2023 of a shooting range in Guitrancourt, a small town in Vexin near Limay.
However, a site exists in Porcheville, just next door, but it is already shared by two associations.
The idea is therefore to make life easier for sports shooters by offering an additional place to practitioners based in Guitrancourt.
“It may seem surprising but we are in a very constrained context, with two clubs in the same place, very tight slots and a lot of demand, says one at the Club de tir sportif des Yvelines.
This situation is not unique to our sector.
Everywhere in the Paris region, the clubs are full and lack land.
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In Île-de-France, stands tend to close
The Guitrancourt project is therefore a "small miracle", at least a certain singularity for the French Sports Shooting Federation where we deplore "a fairly marked lack of infrastructure in Île-de-France" and " poor distribution of sites in relation to demand”.
With 17 stands for 19 associations, mainly in the east and center of the department, Yvelines is a perfect illustration of this situation.
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The department has around 3,800 practitioners compared to 27,000 for the whole of Île-de-France.
Despite regular fluctuations, linked in particular to the presence of French shooters at the Olympic Games and their televised transmission, the numbers are increasing overall.
But this development is not correlated to the increase in the number of stands.
As a result, all new enthusiasts do not necessarily find a place.
“What is planned in Guitrancourt is all the more remarkable in that in Île-de-France, we even have stands that are closing.
Some enthusiasts are forced to practice in the provinces, ”says a spokesperson for the federation.
To join, "it's very difficult, we select"
The lack of land available in the outer suburbs partly explains this situation.
In addition, the opening conditions are binding.
In Guitrancourt, the stand will thus be installed in the middle of the fields and “work with environmental associations is planned in order to limit its environmental impact”, confides Alain Mercadal, the first deputy mayor (SE) of the village.
Logically, local residents are also very reluctant to accept such equipment near their homes.
Officials of the National Tir of Versailles (TNV) can testify to this: their move project – decided by the courts following a complaint from the castle – came up against resistance from the inhabitants of the communes where they wanted to settle. .
“We studied 23 or 24 different projects which did not succeed”, testifies Bernard Collot, president of the TNV.
The association could have found a base in the forest of Marly-le-Roi, far from any habitation...
Besides, whoever wants to join a shooting range does not.
"It's very difficult, we select", assures a manager of the Porcheville club.
The candidates are first interviewed to find out their motivations, in order to exclude "those who want to play cowboy" or avoid tragedies such as the recent suicide in a shooting range in Essonne.