Residents of Dordogne denounce the state of the road damaged by the delivery of tonnes of carrots

“We proposed renaming the Route de Bellevue, Avenue de la Carotte”says Pascale Bouskela, laughing, half yellow. From the terrace of her house, this Parisian who came to settle almost 45 years ago in the hamlet of Puyrénier in Mareuil-en-Périgord, points out the stable and the cows: “It is where trucks deliver carrots to fatten the cows for almost 15 years.”

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Eight kilometers detour due to damaged road

From the top of your garden, you can see the ruts and large puddles of water on the Bellevue municipal road, damaged by the passage of machinery. “When I go to Angoulême, for example, I have to detour eight kilometers because I can't take the road. It doesn't seem like much, but I don't see why I couldn't use this route. “It's not normal.” Pascale Bouskela slice.

Barely two kilometers away, at the other end of the road, Lætitia Godet lives on a farm near cows and carrots. The farmer shares her neighbor's feeling. “We can no longer use the road because it is too damaged. Trucks pass by all the time, it's dangerous with our children. During the big carrot season, there can be up to ten trucks per day. Just this morning, for example, in the space of an hour, two trucks passed by,” explains Lætitia, pointing to the road that passes in front of her house.

“The land is saturated with carrots”

“In some places, there are ruts 50 centimeters deep, there are no more shoulders, and above all, you smell this smell!”says the farmer from the courtyard of her house. In the air, there is a faint smell of rotting vegetables. Lætitia Godet continues: “There is the state of the road of course, but also all the other nuisances. The farmer receives far too many carrots compared to the size of his herd of cows. He distributes his carrots on the ground, they rotting because the cows don't eat them all. There's the smell, the insects, it's really hellish. The carrot juice flows into the river. My children can't even swim in the river below. the house. The land around us is saturated with carrots.”

A few kilometers away, François Damour, the farmer who has the carrots delivered, works in his office. “The smell of what? Carrots! Wait, it's a farm. If it was slurry, it would stink even more!”annoys the operator. “The carrots before them were there, in the courtyard, in front of my office, route de Nontron. It was the town hall that asked me to move them to Puyrénier because it smelled too bad. They already made me move it once, it’s good now!”exclaims François Damour. And to add: “anyway, I am in a classified agricultural installation. An investigation was carried out by the prefecture before I obtained this classification in 2011, the problem of the roads was never mentioned.”

Nearly 200,000 euros of work according to the municipality

Et when we talk about the state of the road, the farmer brushes aside the accusations : “I didn't say that I had something or nothing to do with it, I've been there, it's true, but now I haven't been there for a year. If the roads were in good condition, they would not be damaged.”

For several months, the community of communes of Dronne and Belle, in charge of the maintenance of this municipal road; the town hall of Mareuil-en-Périgord as well as François Damour are passing the buck. The community of communes asks the farmer to pay part of the road repair work. She estimates the costs of the work at around 200,000 euros. But the farmer refuses to pay a single cent. “If the municipality doesn’t have the means, it’s not my fault. It's not up to me to pay while in 15 years the municipality has never once carried out work on this road”says François Damour.

A bailiff came to check the condition of the road

The mayor of Mareuil-en-Périgord, Alain Houiste, explains the positioning of elected officials: “We estimate the work at a minimum of 200,000 euros, this is not a negligible expense, even for a community like the community of communes of Dronne and Belle.” And to add : “We had a bailiff come by a year ago to see the state of the road. We hired a lawyer and We are considering conciliation with the operator. And if it doesn't work out, we can go further.”concludes the elected official.