Village that gambled on cheap rent to survive boasts success
A Normandy village which bought up empty business premises during the financial crises and rented them out cheaply to new firms and young professionals says the plan has been a success.
Fourmetot in the Eure took a gamble by buying several shops and business premises and then renting them out cheaply. But it got a quick return as a hairdresser, bar/grocery and printworks opened, giving it 11 shops.
The result was an extra 120 people in work and its population doubled to 700 in 10 years.
Mayor Daniel Bussy said they bought rundown properties and either renovated them or rebuilt them. It cost a total of about €730,000, which was covered by the rents received, but it had given the village new life.
He said he was determined the village not be turned into a dormitory town whose residents worked in larger towns nearby. He added that the project had been carried out without needing to build new housing.
Larger towns themselves are being hard hit as quartiers are being left without such basics as a bakery. A town such as Aisne sous-préfecture Saint-Quentin in Picardy, for example, has 27% of business premises empty.
Others, such as Pyrénées-Atlantiques capital Pau, have between 10% and 15% of shops empty. Béziers, Dax, Lens, Montauban, Troyes and Evreux are similarly affected.
Many towns were architects of their own problems, allowing out-of-town stores to be built, sucking trade from the centre. But some had no choice.
In Saint Quentin, where traders and the mairie have been trying to fight back against two out-of-town malls by setting up a loyalty card to give shoppers local benefits, a third shopping centre is still being built.
Last year it was revealed nearly all towns of fewer than 50,000 residents were seeing their high streets emptying – and more people left jobless.
Of Saint-Quentin’s 55,000 residents, 28% live on less than €1,000 a month and better-off residents are moving out as the town has little to offer.
In another similar sized town, Albi in the Tarn, between 5% and 10% of shops are empty. The town’s mayor however hit back angrily at a New York Times report that said “paint was fading” on “vacant storefronts” in “deserted” streets.
In a letter inviting journalists to visit the Unesco world heritage town, Mayor Stéphanie Guiraud-Chaumeil said the “deserted” streets were, in fact, only one street and even then not in the town centre.
The Association des Petites Villes de France has put forward rejuvenation ideas such as forcing councils and housing associations to renovate town-centre properties to attract residents.
