Toulouse-Blagnac airport is working on its future
Under the impetus of the prefect, a major consultation on the future of the largest airport in Occitania is delivered. Workshops, consultation, proposals… eleven months to shape the future of Toulouse – Blagnac.
What will Toulouse-Blagnac airport be used for in thirty years? This is the question that will be debated on the occasion of the “Territories workshop” launched yesterday at the headquarters of The Dispatch and broadcast live on the Internet. This is a vast cycle of consultations which will last until November 2022 to share with citizens, local residents, associations, companies, etc. the future place of Toulouse-Blagnac airport (ATB) which, before Covid, carried 10 million passengers.
“Today we are embarking on a substantive approach, of co-construction on the impact of the airport zone on the territories that surround it for the next twenty to thirty years, launched the prefect Etienne Guyot by way of an opening. . The goal is to reconcile the best paths of development to find a balanced path to the future”. Concretely, until next November, three workshops of several days each with in situ visits as well as a sequence of restitution and conclusion will be organized by the direction of the Territories of the regional prefecture.
Allow residents to express themselves
By concentric circle, the three communities concerned (Metropolis, Department, Region) will be involved in the process. The subjects deal with air traffic and its nuisances (sound, atmospheric), access to the airport, urbanization, urban agriculture, employment in the airport area, etc. ranks sixth nationally because it is also the airport for Airbus, which carries out its test flights and aircraft deliveries there. We must make it possible for the inhabitants to express themselves, but we also have a duty to prepare the conditions for the development of the airport which underlie that of our territories,” assured Carole Delga. The President of the Region sees this infrastructure as complementary to the future high-speed line (LGV), “not in competition”.
Jean-Luc Moudenc: “The citizen wins”
For Jean-Luc Moudenc, President of Toulouse Métropole, “this major consultation will allow us to think about how to continue to develop Toulouse airport in the light of today’s requirements, particularly environmental and sustainable development. When we all get together around the same table, the citizen wins”. And Georges Méric, president of the departmental council did not say anything else: “Our community defends a balanced approach for mutual acceptance to answer the question: what is the desirable future for Toulouse-Blagnac airport? “.
If the three big elected officials are on the same wavelength, it is also because they know perfectly the ATB file of which they each hold 5%. They worked together to replace the cumbersome Chinese shareholders of Casil in favor of Eiffage “which is a positive point” according to Georges Méric.
Supported by the Alphaville foresight agency, the State has already identified around a hundred players who will soon be invited to the consultation (see box) with the stated desire to come up with very concrete proposals.
Eleven months of consultation
Moving around in the neighborhoods overflown by the air corridor is a new method of consultation. This will be on the program for one of the three workshops that will mark the year 2022 and will take place over three days each time. The first will be held on March 7, 8 and 11; the second at the end of June and the third in September. The final restitution will take place in November.
The first workshop concerns diagnosis and awareness with the collection of the first ideas and courses of action. The second will offer the most serious and shared leads before finalization at the end of 2022. An email address will soon be set up with the possible creation of a page or a website. “The script is not written. It is to be written, by all,” launched the regional prefect.