A 30 Year Old Public Project Failing to Rally Support

Out of Date

:: The County Council of Dordogne is insisting on reviving a project increasingly contested over the past 30 years.

This project to develop the Dordogne valley and the Bergerac-Souillac via Sarlat highway connection would bring heavy traffic within sight of the medieval fortress of Beynac while bypassing it.

The cost of the bypass only is 35 million euros, to plant 2 concrete bridges in the Natura 2000 reserve, 3 roundabouts and a tunnel under the railway in a recurrently flooded area.

To overcome opposition to this pharaonic project, the County Council has thus embarked upon a crusade to "save Beynac" from its few weeks traffic bottlenecks in summer holidays.

New Perspectives

:: This is without taking into account changes that have occurred in
these past 30 years :

- the Dordogne BIOSPHERE Reserve label awarded in 2012
- new environmental policies, both national and European
- trends in touristic expectation tending towards unspoiled natural
  and historical environments.
- the evolution and analysis of the traffic in Beynac carried out by the
  town-hall contradicting the bypass necessity
- the A89 highway which now absorbs much of the Bergerac-Sarlat
  traffic, and the new Sarlat bypass
- the widening of the road (in progress) in Beynac to ease the flow
- ...

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