VIDEO. In Fessenheim, the NovaRhena company spends 480,000 euros of public money before being dissolved

In 2018, 2 years before the closure of the Fessenheim power plant, the government is already preparing the ground. During a visit to the Haut-Rhin, Sébastien Lecornu, then Secretary of State to the Minister for Ecological Transition, supported the forthcoming creation of an SEM: a mixed economy company, with public and private actors.

.@SebLecornu welcomes the common will of communities, consular chambers, German authorities, the @CaissedesDepots and @EDFofficiel to work on the creation of a semi-public company to manage the development of eco land. in the territory of #Fessenheim pic.twitter.com/N8wkgMQTrn

– Prefect of Haut-Rhin (@Prefect68) April 13, 2018

In April 2021, the company NovaRhena was born. Its mission is to develop an area of ​​220 hectares, the equivalent of 300 football pitches, spread over several plots around Fessenheim.

We went to a fallow area managed by the community of communes in particular. NovaRhena was supposed to welcome innovative companies there, but no construction site has yet seen the light of day, because there is an unforeseen event. The buildable area is in fact twice as small as expected.

The stakes having evolved, what is the interest of NovaRhena?

Gérard Hug, president of the open mixed syndicate, owner of the land

Gérard Hug chairs the structure that owns the premises, he confides: “We were on an area of ​​220 hectares, but because of the environmental richness that exists in this sector along the Rhine, the environmental authority gave us authorization to develop 80 hectares.“

As the land is smaller than expected, the project is scaled down. Result: the local authority decides to do without the services of NovaRhena. The company is therefore dissolved in October 2022.

However, half of its capital, or 480,000 euros, has already been spent.

A lot of public money has been wasted.

Raphaël Schellenberger, MP (LR) for Haut-Rhin

Raphaël Schellenberger, deputy (LR) of Haut-Rhin, denounces a waste of public money: “SEM NovaRhena is clearly a political tool. It was billboard when it was created, but it’s not a technical tool that served the territory. I don’t know if we sacrificed public money, what is certain is that we wasted a lot of it.”

How to explain that half a million euros was spent without any building site seeing the light of day?

Lara Million, president of NovaRhena at the time of its dissolution, talks about the operating costs inherent in the project according to her: “When a startup is created, it takes funds. She has a great idea that she is trying to develop. [Dans le cas de NovaRhena]there were study costs, translation costs, and director’s salary costs.”

Since then, the community of municipalities and the regional council, partly owners of the land, have themselves organized the clearing of the plots. Their development should begin in the coming weeks.

Among our sources:

– Scrollable Twitter feed