Amazon abandons a major warehouse project near Rouen

Europe 1 with AFP 4:40 p.m., March 25, 2022

The e-commerce giant Amazon has given up its project for a large storage warehouse in Petit-Couronne in the Rouen agglomeration, the PS mayor of the small town in favor of the project said on Friday.

The project to build a "logistics building with an area of ​​160,961 m2 (...) will ultimately not be carried out", wrote to the municipality the company Gazeley, which was to rent to Amazon, according to Joël Bigot mayor of Petit -Crown who read the mail to AFP.

Amazon's press department was not immediately available.

A loss of jobs estimated between 1,000 and 1,800 euros

Joël Bigot regretted this decision which he announced Thursday evening in the municipal council.

"The loss of jobs is between 1,000 and 1,800 depending on the time of year. Tax revenue for the municipality was estimated at around 600,000 euros," he said.

"This project bothered so many people," he admitted, however.

"The various appeals against the building permit or the environmental authorization have slowed down the project", underlined the elected official.

In October 2020, the metropolis of Rouen had voted against this project in the face of concerns from the SDIS (departmental fire and rescue service).

The firefighters feared in a report to be faced with an "operational impossibility" and estimated that a large fire could produce "a volume of smoke greater than that produced during the fire of September 26, 2019" on the Seveso site from Lubrizol to Rouen.

However, the metropolis had not taken legal action.

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Questions about "the reality of the work done"

The prefect of Seine-Maritime had signed two decrees in March 2021 authorizing the project, considering that the operator had meanwhile "integrated the recommendations of the SDIS".

But last February, the Norman media Le Poulpe, relayed by Mediapart, had affirmed that the depollution of the site which Amazon was to partly occupy raised "heavy questions about the reality of the work carried out".

The company Valgo was in charge of the depollution of this site where the Petroplus refinery closed in 2013. Le Poulpe said to be based on the testimony of 30 employees and subcontractors of Valgo who worked on this depollution.

But for Joël Bigot, it is "distorted articles", "which mix everything".

"Admittedly, there was a problem with polluted land on the Valgo site, but I took care to receive the Dreal (Regional Directorate for the Environment) some time ago and everything was under control", a- he said Friday.

"A local victory that echoes other abandoned projects"

In a press release, Stop Amazon 76 was "delighted with this local victory which echoes other construction projects abandoned by the American giant in Montbert in Loire-Atlantique and Fournès in Gard".

In 2017, "only three French regions had an Amazon warehouse on their territory. Today, none of them is spared", adds the association.

Asked by an AFP correspondent, Cyrille Moreau, EELV vice-president of the metropolis, said he was "happy that this project harmful to the environment is not carried out in Rouen".

But "the problem is far from being solved (...) Amazon will build it elsewhere", he added.

The PS president of the metropolis Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol refused to comment.

Amazon said in February that it had created more than 10,000 permanent jobs in France over the past five years, but a report from the Progexa firm fears the group's desire to “only keep painful positions in the long term.