Le Figaro Bordeaux
Some thought the site was dead and buried, but it is resurfacing.
In Belin-Béliet, a town of around 5,000 inhabitants in the south of Gironde, a project to build a logistics platform provokes the ire of environmentalists.
This Thursday, February 1, the community of municipalities of Val de l'Eyre will decide on the transfer of land to the developer Percier Realization and Development (PRD).
The problem?
This includes 15 hectares of natural spaces including 10 hectares of wetlands, the protection of which is essential in the fight against climate change.
“On the one hand we are continuing the concreteization of the Arcachon basin without taking into account its biological limits, on the other we are destroying the wetlands by succumbing to the belly dance of promoters hungry for profit
,” criticizes the environmentalist regional advisor. Vital Baude.
According to this elected official,
“while other territories are investing in the ecological transition of the economy or the relocation of production, the community of communes of Val de l'Eyre offers the territory to the globalization of the economy and is banking on an activity destructive of the climate and local commerce
.
Faced with a long-standing mobilization of many residents, and despite the promise of around 300 jobs created, the project was however scrapped.
The building permit filed in 2020 provided for a 71,000 m² warehouse for goods transport companies (the name of the Chinese online commerce giant Alibaba was mentioned), but it would currently only be 53,000 m², with more carbon offsets, a process that is however contested, sometimes compared to
“greenwashing”
.
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A rally planned in front of the town hall
This future logistics platform is, however, still not accepted by a number of opponents, who believe that the information communicated on this subject is still too imprecise and still provides for the concreteization of a wetland of several hectares.
The
“Touche pas à ma moist zone”
association , which was already rebelling against the initial project, is calling for a rally this Thursday, February 1 at 6:30 p.m. in front of the town hall of Belin-Béliet.
“We learn without surprise that this project, which fell through due to lack of response during the period of validity of the promoter's sales promises to State services, is this time presented as more “respectful” of the environment”
, judges the organization in a press release.
These opponents insist that
“the future we want for our territory is not made up of congested and accident-prone potholed roads, developments at the expense of the community and additional highway exits, which will only benefit this developer and to its tenant, in the face of very little tax revenue
.
After the intense climatic phenomena occurring in recent years in Gironde, in particular the exceptional floods of 2020 and the devastating fires of the summer of 2022, accentuated by climate change, the association affirms that the risks would be “
multiplied by this industrial installation in heart of the forest massif and a few hundred meters from a district located downwind of possible smoke
.
According to them, the “concreting/trucks at all costs”
solution
can still be avoided, by canceling this project in the Landes de Gascogne natural park.
Contacted by
Le Figaro
, the promoter did not respond to our requests.