nearly a million euros of work to come to secure it

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She had been a victim of heavy rains at the end of last month. Since these bad weather events that occurred on the evening of Friday October 25, 2024, Notre-Dame-des-Grâces church de Revel – more precisely its chapel of the Virgin, located at the entrance to rue de l'Étoile, then particularly affected – heals its wounds. The debris of bricks, wood and plaster from the collapsed ceiling have been evacuated for several days already, leaving room for an imposing scaffoldingerected just in front of the altar and barely concealing the gaping hole up to which it extends. A safety cord made of tape was even placed along the entire length of the chapel to prevent the faithful from approaching it.

“We will of course have to secure all of this with a very short-term intervention »comments the mayor Laurent Hourquetquestioned on the subject by Voice of Midi Lauragais. Before admitting: “Work should have been undertaken a long time ago. »

More important work than expected

It must be said that the municipality of Revel has been studying this matter for more than a year. Last December, elected officials looked into the renovation project for the 19th century religious building.^e century and its financing arrangements – a deliberation had been taken to this effect in the municipal council. And already mentioned the need toundertake “without too much delay” “urgent water-proofing work”.

The weather events of recent weeks have therefore made it possible to put the issue back on the table and above all to hasten things. But the project promises to be more extensive than initially planned. “We were on a budget of €700,000, I think that there we will surely be closer to a million,” confides Laurent Hourquet. “To be financed largely from own funds, because we have relatively few subsidies for this”he regrets.

Priority to enclosed and covered areas

As for knowing exactly the operations to be undertaken: “We had a meeting this afternoon (Thursday November 14, Editor’s note) to quantify the amount and timing of the work. It will certainly be necessary make choices and prioritize certain pointslike the closed and the covered. The stained glass windows will rather be one of the adjustable levers,” specifies the mayor. The work plan should be studied during the week to a start of the construction site “at the beginning of the year”.

Note also that since this summer, the rose window is no longer – or almost no longer – visible from the outside, hidden by protective nets. “The stones were starting to crumble, so we put this fence in place to prevent it from falling on the square,” explains the elected official.

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