For twenty years, this association has been working to make the Saint-Césaire Industrial Zone a welcoming place

Les bénévoles de l'association de la zone industrielle en réunion.

Présidée par Ludovic de Caslou, elle fête cet anniversaire le jeudi 4 juillet.

In 2004, a group of "loustics" decided to wake up a sleeping beauty, l&rsquo ;association of the Industrial Zone (ZI) of Saint-Césaire, "fallen into oblivion. We came together with a few companies because, although we were the first economic and industrial zone in Nîmes, with Cacharel for example, road maintenance was neglected, remembers Michel Gabelotaud, then a Renault Trucks dealer. We met Mayor Jean-Paul Fournier to show him our 18-hole golf course!" Translate an avenue Joliot-Curie, main axis, with bitumen deformed by hollows and bumps… This start augured the future missions of this association which, on Thursday July 4 at 6:30 p.m., will officially celebrate, at the Le Fleming brewery, its twenty years of existence: & ;quot;Ensure that the people who work there find well-being there, summarizes the vice-president.
And this well-being will pass, still at the dawn of the 2000s, by the installation of name plates and numbers in the streets and avenues, the establishment of a city bus, the ’ rsquo;organization of trash collection…  "Today, the ZI suffers from a thrombosis of the circulation, continues Michel Gabelotaud. To get there, you have to pass under a 3 meter high bridge, a bottleneck. We are going to have a ramp which should see the light of day, I hope, with the Nîmes Ouest bypass."
This umpteenth fight is led by the current president, Ludovic de Caslou (Baurès company): "We are not a business office. We want to ensure the development of businesses, better service to the area, acting around security. The idea ? We get together, we share our difficulties and our projects. During Covid-19, some suffered and we put them in touch with the CCI. We are in dialogue with local communities to move forward together." < /p>

Particularity of the ZI, it depends at the same time on the department, the City and the Agglomeration: a requirement "constructive exchanges" to resolve the various problems encountered by entrepreneurs. Rodeos on Friday evenings, theft of materials, but also development of the West Gate on the site of the Gare Market which blocks land… “We have a collective role, not a personal one.” And because unity is strength, 8 local activity zones have chosen to work together within an interprofessional club, Cizan.

The largest industrial zone in the department

It was at the end of the 1950s that a ZAC, an artisanal and commercial zone, sprang up in Saint-Césaire, in the middle of agricultural land and wasteland. “There were workshops, warehouses, remembers Francis Brun, president of the Heritage Association. The Gare Market was built, not far away, in 1959, during this period of expansion of the city." Today, the Industrial Zone, its new name, of Saint-Césaire welcomes, on 130 hectares, 250 companies and their 2,200 employees in the sectors of production, wholesale trade, transport… It is the largest in the department.