All these nuisances caused by carting are not new. “I have lived in this house for 22 years, my grandparents lived there before. At the time, a hole had formed in the fields, just behind. A tractor had fallen in. We didn’t have too much spoken except that in 2017, I contacted the mayor to complain about the vibrations in the houses and the holes that were forming. Complaints were filed with the Municipality, a sign was installed in 2018 or. 2019 to prohibit the passage of vehicles weighing more than 3.5 tonnes.”
This sign apparently disappeared just before the beet harvest, and it took a new intervention from the Commune, following a complaint from the Jauchois, for a sign to reappear. “It took a year and it was a ban on vehicles over 7.5 tonnes. For two or three years, it’s been the same cinema every year. Trucks go up and down this path, with the consequences described…”
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Residents decided to call the police to enforce the ban. “Since then, the tractors have never come up again. Except that when going down the street, the sign is not visible on the bend. They say that they are not supposed to see it and take the road anyway. They do not cannot go up, but they are allowed to go down…”
Céliane Folon received Mayor Hugues Ghenne at her home to think about a solution. “He told us about concrete blocks at the entrance to the dirt road, to prevent all vehicles from passing through, before coming back to my house a few months later explaining that this measure was not feasible. We looked on Google Earth (Editor’s note: an online map) alternative paths. There are some, even if the journey times are longer. We discussed the possibility of stoning these paths so that they would be accessible to farmers.”
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Fragmented lands
It’s hard not to understand the distress of local residents. Except that on the farmers’ side, the situation is not rosy. Land is fragmented, which makes travel more complex, machines are increasingly larger to meet yield demands. “It’s extremely complex, everyone defends their interestsexplains the mayor of Orp-Jauche. The trucks have to go into the fields and come out somewhere. The farmers were there before us. These trucks are no longer necessarily suitable for municipal roads. At some point, we will have to discuss with the Tirlemont sugar factory and the potato and carrot growers to find a solution. There have always been transitions, and there is no one ideal solution that suits everyone.”
Especially since the stoning of land consolidation roads is expensive. “These are staggering budgets. The reality is not easy, but this problem is encountered in several places, such as rue des Saules, rue du Bienne, rue Renneau Fossé, rue de Merdorp or rue d’En Haut , in particular. For rue de Namur, the cart cannot go back up. That’s already it…”
Hugues Ghenne assures that he will continue his discussions to arrive at a solution.
