The majority of the land where the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport was to be built will be retroceded by the State to the Loire-Atlantique department during the first quarter of 2019, according to the terms of a protocol signed on Tuesday by the prefect Claude d'Harcourt and the chairman of the departmental council Philippe Grosvalet.

Redemption price: 950,000 euros. The outline and the timing of this agreement were already known and Claude D'Harcourt and Philippe Grosvalet took advantage of the signing to communicate the purchase price: 950,000 euros which will be paid by the department to become owner of 895 hectares he had acquired from 1974 in anticipation of the construction of the airport.

The department had sold these lands in 2012 to the state and, after the announcement by the government in January 2018 of the abandonment of the project, he had expressed the wish to become owner again.

The sum of 950.000 euros results from "the evaluation of the grounds and buildings" and takes "account of the expenses occasioned by the rehabilitation of the departmental roads", explains the department and the prefecture in a communiqué, without however specifying the price of discount in state of the roads.

The space represents a total of 1,425 hectares. In total, the area where the airport was to be built represents an area of ​​1,425 hectares and the department will therefore become the main owner.

It has committed to signing agricultural leases both with farmers who have used these lands in the past and with people who have chosen to cultivate land as part of the fight against the airport and is making the move to regularize their land. activities.

The retrocession will become effective in the first quarter of 2019. Disputes have existed over the distribution of these lands, but to date there are only 70 hectares left by conflicts of use, explain the prefecture and the department, saying that when the surrender of land to the department will become effective during the first quarter of 2019, these problems will have been resolved and the signing of all agricultural leases will become possible.

"The leases will only be signed when everyone is in the right," said Claude D'Harcourt.