12 and soon 13. The Cœur de Nacre (CDN) community of communes will expand in 2026 with a new addition: Bény-sur-Mer (Calvados). The village of 450 inhabitants decided to move, leaving Seulles Terre et Mer (STM) for its neighbor further east. “It’s more logical, we have more experience on this side. Outings and shopping are more towards Courseulles and Dover,” confirm Iman and Loïc, two residents of Bény. The Courseulles municipal council has just voted in favor of the integration of the locality, the last stone of a unanimous welcome.
And yet, since 2017, Bény-sur-Mer has been attached to Seulles Terre et Mer, the smallest intercommunity in Calvados with just over 17,000 inhabitants. “We were members of a community of municipalities which merged with two others to give birth to STM,” recalls the mayor, Hubert Delalande. And Bény had not managed to take the exit door, encountering in particular the refusal of the new community. But the idea and the contacts have always existed to move the municipality, a sort of appendage protruding from a strip made up of 27 other municipalities from the land to the sea.
The Bény town hall therefore surveyed its residents about their daily habits. “85% are in favor of changing to Cœur de Nacre,” assures the mayor. “Going to the Creully-sur-Seulles recycling center is ten to fifteen minutes longer than going to the one in Courseulles (member of CDN)”, illustrate Carole and Thierry, in Bény. The village therefore made another request to leave its original community, triggering “a somewhat stormy start to 2024”, regrets Thierry Ozenne, the president of STM, not opposed to change, but upset by “the haste: that shakes and it disorganizes.”
Bény-sur-Mer wanted to move in 2025. Impossible for Seulles Terre et Mer, raising in particular the thorny drafting of its local intercommunal urban planning plan (PLUI): “If Bény left in 2025, i.e. before the end of the drafting of the RAIN, all the work of the 27 municipalities was ruined. We would have had to start all over again.” “I was shocked this summer at a community council meeting,” squeaks Hubert Delalande. We had to find a compromise to change on January 1, 2026.” A deadline advanced by the prefect of Calvados, who intervened in mediation. The councilor of Bény also sees the difficult separation of financial considerations. What Thierry Ozenne tends to confirm: “Bény is 2% of our revenue. It doesn't seem like much, but in the current context, it's important. We will lose revenue, without having less spending. »
There is now one year left to “calm down” the climate, by all accounts. And prepare for the arrival of the village in Cœur de Nacre (CDN). The mayor has already been invited to meetings of his future intermunicipality. The transfer will allow the inhabitants of Bény-sur-Mer “to access our cultural and sports facilities under the same conditions as our residents, as well as to the Courseulles recycling center or to integrate our household waste collection service” , lists the president of CDN, Thierry Lefort, who promises that this “pretty town will have a role to play with its assets, such as its hotel capacities”. Until then, there are still details to be resolved, such as the participation of Bény-sur-Mer in the operation of the school, grouped with two other municipalities, one of which is still a member of STM. Seulles Terre et Mer which will have to look into the new distribution of reimbursement of the 7 million euros invested for its health centers. To 27 municipalities, no longer 28.
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