The Olympic pool and the adjoining pools are full, the brand new locker rooms with their rows of lockers have been installed, and hundreds of bracelets are hanging there. But we do not yet know when visitors will be able to take their first swims at the Mérignac nautical stadium, with a copy on their wrist.
The building permit had been obtained in October 2020 and after two years of work the nautical stadium which cost 40 million euros was about to be delivered on December 19, 2022. But, the judge in chambers of the administrative court has just suspended, on October 24, the building permit, which leads to the work being stopped. They are however practically sealed off, and only a few outdoor facilities are missing from this equipment calibrated for national competitions and the reception of around 2,000 visitors per day. The group headed by Eiffage was in the process of carrying out “blank runs”, that is to say testing the operation of the equipment under vacuum.
A Waterjump in the sights of local residents
It was the “WaterJump”, offering outdoor slides, which aroused the concern of ten residents of the project, who live in a nearby residential area. They have filed several appeals since the summer of 2020, fearing significant noise pollution. “We turned it over to put a noise barrier, the height was lowered and it will be vegetated”, lists Alain Anziani, mayor of Mérignac and president of Bordeaux Métropole. Precautions which did not extinguish the anger of the applicants.
For the moment, we cannot say what the noise caused by the users of these slippery ramps would be, since no impact study has been carried out. It is obligatory when the surface is greater than 10 hectares or, without the neighboring Robert Brettes stadium (already existing), the nautical equipment itself is of a smaller surface. So what is the perimeter to keep in mind? “On this question, we relied on the State of course and, by decree of March 13, 2020, the environmental authority wrote to us, twice, to tell us that we had to stick to the land of the nautical stadium”, recalls the president of Bordeaux metropolis.
The appeals filed by local residents concerning these nuisances, but having repercussions on all the equipment of the nautical stadium, had been rejected on several occasions, in particular by the Council of State on November 19, 2021, confirming the metropolis in its Steps. “But less than a year later, the court judges the opposite, Alain Anziani is surprised, on September 14, 2022, considering that the environmental authority would have committed “an error of law”, by exempting the project from an impact study. He gives the metropolis 20 months to carry out this study. But local residents are not stopping there…
An opening postponed, for several years perhaps
Two years after the start of the work, the local residents filed an interim order requesting this time that the work be stopped. And to the amazement of the metropolis, in the order dated October 24, 2022, the administrative court suspends the work, considering that there is “not a particularly serious attack on the general interest”, which makes the metropolis jump. Emphasizing that the work is finished, Alain Anziani recalls that it is a decision which “deprives the users of an entire population pool of this equipment”, in an agglomeration with a shortage of pools.
The Métropole appealed the decision of the administrative court, while taking steps to produce an impact study. She hopes to open as soon as possible, recalling that schools, associations, sports clubs and residents have been waiting for this opening for years. The UCPA, the future operatorhad started recruiting and several dozen people find themselves in uncertainty.
If the suspension of work is confirmed “the closure will be at least a year” fears the president of the Metropolis who does not want the gleaming equipment to end up in the “museum of lost works”…