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VIDEO. In Saint-Aubin-sur-Yonne, they transform the lock house into a living space
In Saint-Aubin-sur-Yonne in Jovinien, all the businesses have closed. To revitalize the village, the association “La Prochaine Aire” chose to reopen the abandoned house at the lock and transform it into a living space. Brut was at the inauguration of the place.
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In Saint-Aubin-sur-Yonne in Jovinien, all the businesses have closed. To revitalize the village, the association “La Prochaine Aire” chose to reopen the abandoned house at the lock and transform it into a living space. Brut was at the inauguration of the place.
In this old lock keeper’s house, reopened a month ago, and located in Saint Aubin-sur-Yonne, in the Jovinien, it is possible to “drink a coffee, eat, get your bike repaired, buy local products, meet locals or people passing through” explains Franklin, co-founder of the association “La Prochaine Aire” at the origin of the project. Their main motivation “For the locals, it is already about recreating meeting spaces” specifies Lise, co-founder. In order to include residents, the co-founders launched a citizen consultation. They were thus able to collect their ideas and integrate them into the project.
Yolande knows the village well, she has lived there for a long time. It states: “Little by little, all the businesses closed. So what does it do? It creates isolation between people. There is no more contact, or very little.” She is delighted with the reopening of the place: “I am happy and I believe in it enormously because we are still on the road to Santiago de Compostela. I wish the Association success because they have a dynamic, they are energetic, they They believe in it too and that’s very good and I hope they do well.”
Barely launched, the project has already inspired others such as the Pizzeria de la Vallée, which opened a few meters further in the village. “I just opened my pizzeria because, precisely, there was nothing left in the trade and it’s my childhood village, so I said to myself: I’m going to open my pizzeria there” explains Jonathan, the manager of the pizzeria.
The “La Prochaine Aire” association hopes to be able to welcome many visitors and curious people during the summer. “During this summer, all the people who want to come to be in a setting, which is beautiful, which is bucolic, close to nature, close to the canal, we can go swimming, we can go for bike rides and we can especially meeting people who are perhaps outside of our social circles or outside of the cities in which we are used to hanging out”, Franklin concludes.