Interview with Bernard Nuttens Mayor of Levergies (Aisne)

1. Could you introduce yourself, your commune, your CC and your department?

My name is Bernard Nuttens, I’m 65 years old, I’m an agricultural engineer from ISA in Lille, I’m a farmer, my farm is in Levergies. I was a public works contractor and just sold my company a month ago. Finally, I’m the mayor of Levergies. The commune has 555 inhabitants and is part of the Pays du Vermandois com.

Levergies is essentially rural, with just one industrial mechanical engineering company operating there. There are very few unemployed people in the commune, and many Levergies residents work at the St Quentin hospital. There are also lorry drivers from local transport companies. This is my second term as mayor. Before that I was a local councillor.

2. What is your role within the local authority?

The role of a mayor is to look after the commune’s finances, manage the commune’s staff and I’m president of the school union because we have a school grouping of 3 communes, with 100 pupils. As chairman of the school union, I manage relations between the teachers and the parents, as well as managing the canteen. The most difficult thing is managing the parents. We’re in a generation of child kings.

Everyday policing, making sure that people behave properly when it comes to the upkeep of their property, problems with neighbours, which can be quite numerous, problems with barking dogs – these are the negative aspects of the mayor’s role.

3. Why host a wind farm in your area?

The project was adopted by the previous town council, of which I was a member. But personally I preferred to withdraw from each meeting because I risked being a stakeholder in this project and to avoid any illegal taking of interest.

In the end, I don’t have any wind turbines on my land, so I’m much calmer about managing this. What’s more, I used to be a civil engineering contractor and we’ve worked on a number of wind farm sites, including the 1st wind farm at Coudigny for over 15 years with companies like Eiffage, Colas and Volkswind.

It’s quite simple: we’re surrounded by wind farms, so we thought why not come here? In particular, because of the financial spin-offs for our budget, it would allow us to look to the future with peace of mind in terms of the commune’s finances.

4. Do you have any idea of the financial benefits the wind farm will generate?

We will receive €73,000 per year from the moment they come into service. 

5. Did the Town Council sign up to the project straight away ?

It was very straightforward when the investigating commissioner came and there were only two comments in the investigating commissioner’s notebook, one of which was in favour of wind turbines and the other just asking for technical details. There were no protests, no petitions, no articles in the press, nothing at all. There was more indifference on the part of local councillors and residents than anything else.

6. How has the project been received in the community?

As a farmer myself, I’ve seen the benefits of upgrading all our farm tracks. And above all, we’re in a beet-growing region, so there’s a lot of beet transport in the autumn and winter, and the roads that have been created mean that the beet lorries don’t have to pass through the village. It was a great satisfaction for the residents to know that the lorries would no longer pass through the village thanks to the paths created to access the wind farm. Some of the farm tracks have also been rebuilt, making it easier for farmers to access their plots of land, and for walkers too, as the new footpaths are also used by cyclists.

7. What was your relationship with Volkswind during the project?

The project went well with the various people at Volkswind, and they accommodated all our requests, of which there weren’t many. We asked for a path to be extended to make a circuit and we asked to be able to keep the site’s life base as it was to make a car park for our cemetery. The work was carried out by Colas, who did an excellent job.

8. How did this wind farm fit in with your surroundings?

The site is not yet finished, the wind turbines are still being erected. But there are some, on the right, on the left, at the back, one more or one less is not too noticeable.

9. What projects or work have been carried out thanks to the arrival of wind turbines?

We’re planning to build a compact city stadium for schoolchildren and young people to play football, basketball and volleyball, and we’ve also planted around 600 trees on the commune’s somewhat disused land. We’re also planning to build a small housing estate, and the financial benefits from the wind farm will enable us to finance the access roads to the 3/4 houses that will welcome new families to the commune.

10. Have there been any other spin-offs, on the local economy for example?

There are all the local companies, the diggers and hauliers who fetch the gravel from quarries in the north. There’s a breezeblock and concrete company right next door that supplied all the concrete for the wind turbine frames.
We’ve been working in the wind industry for 15/20 years, and it’s had a huge impact on the local economy, whatever our regional president Xavier Bertrand, who is against wind turbines, might say.