Intermittent lake, Costières stadium and young autistic sapper… the essential news in the region

What future for the Costières stadium?

#NIMES – Led by the controversial president of the Nîmes Olympique football club, Rani Assaf, the project for a new district planned on the site of the current Costières stadium, in Nîmes, is in trouble. On Thursday, the National Commercial Development Commission (CNAC), on appeal, rejected this vast real estate program which, according to it, harms local businesses. In addition, the town hall of Nîmes, which would like the club of its owner Rani Assaf to withdraw, no longer provides its support. Without a building permit issued, no project. Despite these clouds, one of Rani Assaf’s associates, the Montpellier real estate developer Cyrill Meynadier (Opalia), believes that the unfavorable opinion of the Cnac does not endanger the future district. In the meantime, the Costières stadium, built at the end of the 1980s, benefits around fifteen associations free of charge. For them, relocation is still planned for the summer of 2024. If the City delegates, in particular to Vinci, the maintenance of the installations, it manages the lawn of the football field (operating costs: more than €150,000).

A lake reappears after nine years of absence on the Larzac

#HERAULT – It is an exceptional natural phenomenon. After last Saturday’s Mediterranean episode, Lac des Rives reappeared on Larzac. The last time was in 2014… And since last weekend, it has attracted many visitors. It is therefore the abundant rains which contributed to filling a small area of ​​the bottom of the depression of the tenement called “the lake”. It is the convergence of several streams which forms the temporary Lac des Rives (or Las Aygas). Small in scale, the last appearances date back to 2014 and 2004, while the lake had filled well in 1996 then at the end of 199, after the water had not completely drained at the level of the sinkhole.

Enzo, young autistic firefighter

#SÈTE – He is 16 years old and has just joined the Young Fire Brigade. Nothing differentiates him from his 29 classmates, except that he has a mild form of autism. A first for this type of inclusion in the Hérault department. The young Mézois Enzo now wears the yellow badge of the young firefighters. He participates in training every Saturday morning, outside of school vacation periods. His mother, very proud, enthuses: “I see Enzo, he’s a JSP like the others, totally integrated into the group. We don’t perceive his difference.”

World clean-up Day: nearly 400 cleanings

#OCCITANIA – The region once again stood out during World Clean Up Day on September 16. According to initial counts, 385 operations were carried out in Occitania out of the 2,400 in France (not counting initiatives not listed on the event website). Haute-Garonne takes first place with 240 cleanings and in the former Languedoc-Roussillon, Gard comes in first (42) ahead of Aude (35) and Hérault (28). “This year we have a clear increase in cleaning operations by companies, more than a third,” indicates Cathy Sanchez, the Occitanie representative for the day.

The number of the day: 2026

#MONTPELLIER – The year which should see the start of work on the western bypass of Montpellier (COM). In any case, this is what Vinci is planning, who has established a provisional timetable. At the end of the environmental investigation, the construction work could therefore begin “at the end of 2025, but more probably at the beginning of 2026, for a duration which should not exceed three and a half years”, explained Salvador Nuñez, operational director of Vinci, Monday.