Concrete plant in Saline: the court of appeal overturns the judgment of the administrative court

In a decision made public on February 27, the Bordeaux Administrative Court of Appeal annulled the judgment of July 5, 2022, of the Saint-Barthélemy Administrative Court. The latter had then chosen to annul the building permit issued to the company Laplace Services for the construction of a concrete plant on two registered plots located in the Saline district. For the applicants (the company French Cricket, Roderick Hilary and Elizabeth Brooks, the association Saint-Barth Essentiel, Jacques and Marie-Michelle Danet and their children, the company Supersky Sisters, Henri Boulanger, Francine Hamel Laplace, Georges Edouard and Francine Gréaux), the victorious satisfaction of July 2022 was therefore swept away by the Court of Appeal. At the hearing on February 6, through a request and additional briefs, the lawyer for Laplace Services, Maître Almosnino, formulated a long list of challenges to the grounds put forward by the Saint-Barthélemy administrative court in the judgment rendered in July 2022. By first attacking the conclusions drawn, according to the council, from a “lack of knowledge” of an article (UA7) of the urban planning map code, mainly on technical aspects of the construction of the future concrete plant (roof drain, height and compliance). A ground that the court considered “founded” and the second was “upheld” by the magistrates of the court of appeal. They consider that the site of the plant is far from the existing facilities dedicated to the industrial crushing activity and that it is indeed the creation of a new structure, distinct from the first currently operated in Saline. The court also rejected the arguments related to the power supply and the developments that the company would supposedly have to undertake to operate its future plant. "Laplace Services is justified in arguing that the Saint-Barthélemy administrative court was wrong to annul the decision of 20 May 2021 granting it a permit to build a concrete plant in the contested judgment," the magistrates concluded. In the same judgment, French Cricket was ordered to pay the sum of 1,500 euros to Laplace Services.