The Department of Aveyron announces an “ambitious” and slightly increasing 2024 budget

Arnaud Viala a défendu son budget primitif, hier matin, devant les élus départementaux. Centre Presse – JOSE A. TORRES

Malgré un contexte économique incertain l’enveloppe de 439 M€ augmente de 0,9 %.

Unusually, during the last session of the Aveyron departmental council held last Friday in the morning, as a preamble to the examination of the initial budget, Arnaud Viala shared his annoyance. The president in fact led a charge against his opponents, Arnaud Combet and Sarah Vidal after their appearance in the press where they presented several measures to help households in the face of inflation. But also and above all, Arnaud Viala returned to several points which, in recent months, have been controversial.

"A final point has been made with the ZAN exception for the more than 300 hectares affected by the RN 88 route"

On the RN 88, the Department is still waiting for a financing proposal from the State, "the Government has still not completed “to be composed, we have to wait until the teams are stabilized,” said Arnaud Viala. But here again, the president of the Department wanted to recall that a ’an end point has been set with the exception of ZAN, for the more than 300 hectares which are affected by the route RN88. This final point was put by the Minister of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, Christophe Béchu at our request and by no one else.

Arnaud Viala refers here to a recent statement by Carole Delga who welcomed the inclusion of the site on the list of major projects of national or European interest, thus making an exception to the law ZAN (Zero net artificialization), after having "forcefully carried out this request".

A budget geared towards the municipalities

For its part, the Region maintains these comments and reaffirms its "full support for the RN88" file. The project is estimated at more than 350 million euros, the Region has for its part promised a budget of 95 million euros. Double is expected from the State which has still not commented on the issue. That being said, Arnaud Viala looked at the initial budget.

An "ambitious budget", according to him, which fits "in a difficult context for the department, and which gives us the means to invest, to inject money into the Aveyron economy. We are voting on this budget which is also aimed at the municipalities and communities of municipalities.

Rodez-Aveyron Airport: “a very demanding choice for the Department”

The question of attractiveness has thus returned to the debates through the airport and its financing."There are strategic choices that we have made. These are very costly choices for the community. We are proud to be able to achieve them but it is very demanding for the Department. I call on the Occitanie region to also face this burden as it does for the structures of Carcassonne or Tarbes and other airport platforms similar to that of Rodez. And I will not accept for much longer that the Aveyronnais are deprived of the support of Occitanie in such an obvious way"  thus asserted Arnaud Viala. As a reminder, in mid-January an agreement was reached with the Amelia company, created by Aveyron resident Alain Regourd, for it to continue its lease for six months on the Rodez tarmac after numerous discussions. The airport's joint union, manager of the infrastructure, is 70% financed by the Department, the rest is shared between Greater Rodez, the CCI and the Region, member of the joint union since 2020.

The budget is thus balanced at €439,178,428, an increase of 0.9% compared to last year. Investment expenses amount to €69,034,428. The share of project management investments is 48.4 million euros and includes mobility works and equipment, colleges, departmental real estate, etc. A budget which was voted by the majority, minus the votes of the opposition.

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