“Work planned for June”: has a dangerous bridge been detected in Lot-et-Garonne?

The road leading to Sauvetat-sur-Lède in Castelnaud-de-Gratecambe is under surveillance. For several days, motorists using the Beauregard road have seen a “road blocked” sign appear near the place called Cantarel. On the marker, two sheets of paper indicating a temporary order “banning traffic and parking due to a major structuring defect in a work of art”. We are talking here about a bridge, which spans the Mascarde stream, a tributary of the Lède.

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The infrastructure is not huge, its length is 11.30 meters for a width of the track of 3.50 meters. However, few motorists stop in their tracks. In 15 minutes, no less than three cars will use the bridge and this municipal road. If the marking is not the most imposing, it remains visible despite everything…

Why this sudden closure? It is, in fact, following a request from our colleagues from Complément d'investigation, broadcast on France 2. The program focused on the state of bridges and the National Bridge Program (PNP), launched in 2020 by the State with the aim of diagnosing, then repairing, the most damaged structures. This program was piloted by Cerema, a public organization. Recommendations have been drawn up by experts for bridges exhibiting deficiencies, from simple signage to warn of danger to the complete closure of the bridge, including limiting the tonnage of authorized vehicles. There are 24. Among them, this small bridge at Sauvetat-sur-Lède. The problem is that the notifications from Cerema took a long time to come.

The mayor of the town, Françoise Laborde, was somewhat surprised by the phone call from our colleagues from France 2. Better safe than sorry, she signed the municipal order prohibiting the closure of the bridge. “It has become fragile because it is used by agricultural machinery. This bridge has a few cracks, but nothing major,” tempers the councilor of La Sauvetat.

“Work planned for the month of June”

The infrastructure, when you approach it, doesn't make a bad impression. Certainly, the vegetation has taken over the stone. It is impossible to say when the structure was built. On the Cerema website, the bridge is well listed, like three others spanning the Mascarde river. It is noted that the bridge is “pre-1950”. No early youth, but it shows no apparent failure. The water flow is not the issue either. “It’s only during this period that there is water. In the summer, the stream is dry,” continues the mayor. If cars continue to circulate on the structure, she says she is calm about the passage of motorists “but especially about the seriousness of the farmers” for their caution.

A meeting has just been held by Françoise Laborde with local farmers, from Castelanaud to Sauvetat, to plan future work on the infrastructure. “We don’t want to interfere with the two important times when they need traffic, for the plum harvest and the harvest.” The farmers have indicated that it is important to them that the road is passable for the month of August and goes from one orchard to another. But the Mascarde stream must also be at its lowest level to be able to carry out the restructuring of the bridge. “We are going to expand it,” reveals the elected official. The operation will be carried out by the community of communes of Bastides in Haut-Agenais Périgord, competent in road matters, all under management. “We do several of them every year,” assures Françoise Laborde. The bridge work is therefore planned for June, “with a complete closure of a month and a half,” she warns. The time needed to check that everything is going well and that, from the car to the tractor, crossing the Mascarde is happening without danger.