the essential
At the end of a 3-hour session, this Thursday evening, December 19, 2024, the Grand Montauban community council voted on the initial 2025 budget which amounts to just over 136 million euros. The majority highlighted its ambitious investment program (46 million) and its ability to anticipate major structuring projects (LGV station, West urban boulevard, new hospital) while the opposition is worried about the multiplicity of loans and of the weight of the debt.
Three hours is the duration of the river session of the community council, the last of the year 2024, which occupied the elected officials of Grand Montauban until 9 p.m. this Thursday, December 19, in the municipal council room of the Montauban Town Hall.
Three hours is also the time it will take in 2032 to travel from Montauban to Paris by TGV when the Toulouse-Bordeaux high-speed line comes into service… if the deadlines for this major project are met. The LGV was discussed at the start of the session when President Marie-Claude Berly presented amendment n.1 to the convention which links Safer Occitanie and Grand Montauban. Governing means planning: in 2013, the municipalities of Bressols and Montauban decided to create a deferred development zone (ZAD) with an area of more than 630 hectares. The objective was to establish a right of pre-emption on these two municipalities in order to constitute the land reserves necessary for the LGV station project and to control the price of land.
A large part of the perimeter of the future station district being located in the agricultural zone of the PLU, the agglomeration wished in 2022 to be supported by Safer before establishing agricultural land reserves which will allow the community to rehouse and compensate the operators agricultural areas affected by the right-of-way of the railway line and the station. “Acting upstream means avoiding expropriations which are long and costly,” emphasizes Marie-Claude Berly.
With the BUO, we work for the entire territory. What guides us is the general interest. For this road project, we have no choice: we are obliged to come to an agreement with the other communities.
To reach the LGV station, the approximately 1.5 million passengers expected each year (a low range, according to Thierry Deville) must be able to benefit from adequate road infrastructure. This is where we talk about the West urban boulevard again (or Boulevard d’Occitanie if you prefer). This Thursday evening, the community council voted to acquire a plot of 1,510 m2 in Bas-Pays, over which section 2 of the BUO will pass… but 100 million euros still need to be found to finance sections 4 at 7, which will allow users to reach the Bressols LGV station, the new Montauban hospital or the Lacourt-Saint-Pierre motorway interchange.
Thierry Deville wants to be optimistic: “With the BUO we work for the entire territory. When we bring together the conference of mayors, all decisions are taken unanimously because what guides us is the general interest. For this road construction site, we have no choice: we are obliged to come to an agreement with other communities. This is the meaning of the study company that Grand Montauban has created with the State and the Department.
The session had started almost two hours when the advisors attacked the main course: the examination of the initial 2025 budget and the seven additional budgets. Here again, it was Thierry Deville, 1st vice-president, who was in charge. “This is a discussion that we already had during the budgetary orientation debate. This is the outline of the DOB that I am presenting to you this evening.” A plan which did not prevent a long exchange with the socialist Arnaud Hilion, the only opposition elected official present at this session with the ecologist Sandrine Lagarde, to whom the communist Rodolphe Portoles had given power.
DDM – PIERRE-JEAN PYRDA
Unsurprisingly, the majority highlighted its voluntarism, defending this timetable consisting of voting for BP 2025 before Christmas… and especially before knowing all the budgetary elements of the Bayrou government, not yet named. “If you want peace, prepare for war. With our services, we have planned modeling based on decisions that the State could take. But all the projects listed in the investment section will be carried out, I assure you “, launches Thierry Deville to respond to the opposition’s reservations.
The key figures of the 2025 budget
Budget total : 136 480 761 €.
Operation section: expenses and revenues balanced at €79,171,420. Personnel costs are the largest item (€25,494,000), representing 40% of expenses. General charges amount to €17,750,605: 63% of this sum is devoted to waste management skills, maintenance of the separative rainwater network, roads and the attractiveness of the territory through of organizing events. In operating revenue, Grand Montauban expects a little more than 21 million euros in taxes.
Investment section: expenses and revenues balanced at €57,309,341. For this last year of the mandate, the draft budget retained a borrowing hypothesis of 23.6 million euros. An envelope of €46,461,076 is included in equipment expenses. A quarter of this sum (€11.70 million) will be devoted to Boulevard d’Occitanie. Note among the main investments: €4.77 million for the work on the Sapiacou mill lock, €4.41 million for Boulevard Blaise-Doumerc, €2.79 million for the development of Place Foch ( in front of the prefecture), a total allocation of €2.32 million for rural communities or even 2 million for the first phase of the Tour de ville garden.
In “the Prévert-style list of figures” delivered by Marie-Claude Berly’s right arm, Sandrine Lagarde did not hear one, which worries her a lot: “These 61 loans taken out by the community. Only four of them between them will expire at the end of this mandate. This raises questions about the future and future generations who will have to repay these loans without having the benefit of infrastructure. Is the elected environmentalist serious in saying that? Who could believe that future generations will not benefit from the LGV station or the new hospital?
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