2023-12-20 18:06:23
The State is still looking for a solution to improve Nantes airport. “Stalled” almost six years after the abandonment of the Notre-Dame-des-Landes project, the modernization of Nantes airport must be “urgently relaunched”, according to a senatorial report presented on Wednesday, a few days after the launch of a new call for tenders by the government. The report calls for “acting as quickly as possible to modernize the airport” with the mission of remaining “listening to local stakeholders”, “controlling the environmental impact” and “enhancing the health of local populations a priority “.
Didier Mandelli, LR senator from Vendée, presented this report at the end of a “flash mission” carried out in order to understand “why, almost six years after the abandonment of the Notre-Dame-des-Landes project, the modernization of Nantes Atlantique airport is still at a standstill”, after the cancellation in October of a call for tenders launched in 2019. During a press conference, the senator said he wanted to “breath new life to the project” through several proposals, while the government announced in mid-December the launch of a new call for tenders.
The report, adopted unanimously in committee in the Senate, enjoins the State to “ensure the carrying out of urgent works” in the face of a state of “proven dilapidation” of the infrastructures and to demand in the future from the concessionaire “a program investments” for “improving passenger reception conditions” and “runway safety”. The authors also want to “ensure sustainable integration of the airport into its environment” by measuring in particular “the effects of nuisances on the national nature reserve of Lake Grand-Lieu”, neighboring the airport.
The redevelopment project postponed by two years
Didier Mandelli thus said he was very hostile to the hypothesis of an extension of the airport runway, “which posed enormous difficulties for a benefit in terms of noise pollution that was far from being major” according to him. He also calls in his report to “strengthen the curfew”, currently in effect from midnight to 6 a.m., by prohibiting landings before 7 a.m. and takeoffs after 9 p.m. To relieve local residents, the report also recommends “increasing the ceiling for soundproofing aid by taking into account inflation”.
“The State’s decision to rely heavily on private firms in the management of this project does not seem to me to be going in the right direction. It is about the good use of public funds,” explained Didier Mandelli on Wednesday, raising the question of the “trust” placed in the government in relation to its promises. After the cancellation of the previous call for tenders, the Minister of Transport had planned a delay of “around two years” of the redevelopment project.
According to Greenpeace, “in terms of CO2 emissions per passenger, the difference between the train and the plane, for the same journey, is considerable. For example, for a journey from Paris to Marseille, we emit 53 times more CO2 (in equivalent per passenger) when we travel by plane rather than by train. »
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