Maintenance of hedges on municipal roads, tailor-made in Orne

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Habits and customs die hard. How long has the Perche region been pruning through private companies?

We no longer know, which is why we very frequently hear, “I can’t tell you but it’s been so long, in fact I’ve always known that.”

450 km of road side road to be treated

However, Francis Berard, vice-president of the CdC of the Pays de Mortagne-au-Perche remembers. “In the 1990sthe appearance of shearers allowed municipal employees to change their skills. Previously, they worked on pruning and road work manually. The technique has replaced arduousness and mowing,” he explains.

Specialized companies

The municipalities then call on pruning companies. But for a short time, since the powers of paved roads quickly pass to the newly created CdCs.

The elected official from La Mesnière, in charge of roads and rivers, continues: “Our CdC awards contracts via public markets lasting three years. We work with three companies that work on 450 kilometers of road side roads.”

Several interventions each year

But when it comes to maintaining the safety of the road network, the clearance of lanes, visibility at intersections, there is no reason to hesitate or balk.
“Pruning ornamental hedges in the town center is the responsibility of the owners” as recalled by Philippe Guyot, deputy mayor of Bubertré.

“But outside the villages, by observing irregularities and disappearances of hedges, the public authority has taken over the pruning and entrusted it to private companies” explains the mayor of Tourouvre-au-Perche, Franck Poirier .

Pruning companies intervene several times a year and allow homogeneity in the work, even though the calendars differ from one municipality to another depending on the availability and specifications of the companies working.

An allocated budget of 155,000 euros

Damien Coquerel, roads technician at CdC Cœur du Perche, explains: “The 450 km of roads to be treated correspond to a budget the 155,000 euros HT and include three passages: end of May and end of July for crushing and shouldering.”
He continues: “And from October for pruning, up to 6 m in height to maintain the clearance of the telecoms networks and the passage of the fiber, with ultimately the final grinding of the embankments, ditches and the shoulder. »

Hedges are no longer torn down, they are preserved. And a hedge is a guarantee of biodiversity, water retention and wind

And then, they store carbon, participate in climate regulation, offer a small barrier of freshness for mammals in the meadow in summer, guarantee shelter and refuge for small animals.

In short, they are real pollutant filters and real multipliers of life, in particular for the nesting and reproduction of birds.

Family and local businesses

From October to December, companies work on “pruning in progress”. The vast majority of tree pruning companies are family-owned and local.
Moreover, as Francis Berard explains, “the idea is not to change companies every three years but to make relationships more reliable and to employ the best companies, not necessarily the least expensive but those which are good work and who have strong backs.”

Alain Chassaly, from AC ELAGAGE, takes care of 2500 to 3000 km of roads. With an employee and his son who has just joined the company, Alain Chassaly has no shortage of contracts. He works around 70% for different CdCs and the remaining % for individuals and farmers: “The guys don't want to bother with that anymore and we have the right tools to work”.

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