Nîmes Métropole can launch its projects after signing, with the State, the transfer of the airport platform

Le préfet du Gard Jérôme Bonet et le président de l'Agglo Franck Proust ont signé le transfert de la plateforme aéroportuaire. MIKAËL ANISSET

In the presence of elected officials, representatives of the economic fabric, the Army, the prefect of Gard Jérôme Bonet and Franck Proust, president of Nîmes Métropole, signed, this Thursday, February 29, the transfer of the airport platform in Saint-Gilles.

In a terminal at the Nîmes Grande Provence – Méditerranée airport almost as busy as a busy summer day, Jérôme Bonet, prefect of Gard, signed the transfer agreement, by the State, of the airport platform, with Franck Proust, president of Nîmes Métropole. A great opportunity for the Agglo which has no shortage of major projects for the economic development of this area located in Saint-Gilles and Garons.

This transfer constitutes even more of a bargain on paper as it costs pennies for Nîmes Métropole. "But I warn you right away: we are committing between 15 and 20 M€ for the separation and strengthening of the networks", specified the president of the Agglo. The cost of the work actually amounts to 21.5 M€ excluding taxes with up to 50% aid and co-financing.

Land

Franck Proust was able to keep smiling this Thursday. The Agglo ultimately recovers around thirty hectares, of which more than eleven will be marketable with 50,000 m2 of trackside hangars, the same area of ​​floor space in the tertiary and small sector industry. "This land gives us the right to build up to twelve buildings along the slope", added the president of Nîmes Métropole. The latter who thanked several mayors of the Agglomeration, the services, the State and all those who made it possible, after three years of work, to make this transfer a reality.

More than 1,000 jobs hoped for

This augurs good prospects with more than a thousand qualified jobs and 100 M€ potential private investments. Franck Proust believes in it:  "We were approached by companies but as long as we did not have available land… There is a call for projects for start-ups to integrate the rehabilitated building B46 , it will be during September. Another call for projects concerns a 20 ha area in Saint-Gilles located south of the Civil Security Base. Afterwards, supply creates demand."  L'Agglo gives itself two to three years to occupy these areas recovered thanks to this transfer of skills.

An operation welcomed by the prefect of Gard who did not forget to emphasize that this file had been launched in December 2021 by Marie-Françoise Lecaillon, the former prefect. "Nîmes Métropole applied as a candidate because it corresponds to its vision of the territory and its development. The orientation and programming law of the Minister of the Interior confirms the State's long-term commitment on the basis of Civil Security. A commitment over time to maintain the aeronautical vocation of the place. For État, it is the guarantee of maintaining this national flagship of the means of fighting forest fires." 

Several ministries were concerned by this transfer, including that of the Armed Forces which ceded part of its land, to launch the economic development of the Saint-Gilles airport area. With all these planets aligned, it remains to attract businesses to an employment area that needs them so much.

250,000 passengers at the airport

The president of the Agglo recalled that the airport was on the right track with no less than 250,000 passengers per year, an interesting level of activity with adequate resources (air traffic control, fire rescue), and an Edeis delegate who works on new destinations. Franck Proust recalled that air traffic generated 2.7% of greenhouse gases compared to 14% for forest fires, these fires that the internationally renowned Civil Security Base of Saint-Gilles will help combat.

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