Workaround. The mayor of Martinvast defends zone 1 after the declarations of Cherbourg elected officials

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The southwest bypass project from Cherbourg-en-Cotentin (Manche) continues to react.

Jacky Marie, mayor of Martinvast, shares his thoughts: “It is time to make the voices of Martinvast residents heard who will be directly impacted in their lives by a road which should cross their commune for more than 5 km”.

A project reactivated in 2024

A headache, in fact, is the route of this project, which has already been mentioned for several decades by the elected officials of North Cotentin. Today supported by the Department, it moved into a more active phase in 2024 through, in particular, a prior consultation with the general public which gave rise to a rather lukewarm assessment from the National Commission for Public Debate, pointing to a lack of consensus.

Jacky Marie, aware that the roads in his commune which currently connect national road 13 to the west of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin are for the most part “narrow, winding and extremely accident-prone”, agrees.

They are not up to the task of a territory which intends to further accelerate industrial development in the coming years.

If he recalls that “the Martinvastais have never been particularly demanding” – the commune being effectively neither landlocked nor far from national road 13 via La Longue-Chasse – he is no less supportive, as mayor, of such a project with the Cherbourg residents. “Subject, however, to certain conditions” which would not endanger the environment, nor agriculture, nor the geographical unity of its municipality.

“Madness of 100 million” for the elected officials of Cherbourg

The recent declarations of some of the elected officials of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin challenge the mayor of Martinvast.

In the current study, zone 1 selected would pass north of Martinvast. Certainly, because of the SNCF line, it requires the construction of a viaduct over the Quincampoix valley, but this is the only option deemed acceptable for the Martinvastais. The elected officials of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin are questioning this choice and this change of direction is surprising. However, putting a spindle back on the table that would cut Martinvast in two is NO.

A spindle which also represents from his point of view “an ecological disaster” by “the filling of wetlands and the massacre of part of the Mont du Roc wood”.

As for widening the existing roads lined with homes such as “La Longue-Chasse, the Virel hamlet or Tabarin”, it’s still no. “By shifting traffic to zone 1,” argues Jacky Marie, “traffic on these roads would be reduced to 4,000 vehicles per day compared to 8,000 today, a dream for local residents. »

In conclusion, the mayor of Martinvast calls on the elected officials of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin to support the departmental choice of zone 1 by “showing in turn a little solidarity”, particularly with regard to “the postponement of traffic on municipal roads peripherals” induced by the traffic choices made in the port city.

During the Cherbourg-en-Cotentin municipal council meeting on December 18, elected officials, in response to the Department, said they were still in favor of the bypass project to secure and streamline traffic. But not at the cost of “a madness worth 100 million euros with a viaduct 456 meters long and 82 meters high which would disfigure the Quincampoix valley”. A public inquiry is planned for the end of 2027. “Let’s rack our brains to think about the Cotentin of 2050, not that of 1980,” indicated the mayor of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin Benoît Arrivé.

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