“We’re heating the outside!” » Like Laurent Desmons, mayor of Waziers, a town in the North of 7,500 inhabitants, who talks about his municipal swimming pool, many local elected officials complain that their sports equipment is energy sieves.
The observation is stark when, thanks to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the public authorities have made sport a “great national cause” and ensure that the event will leave a ” heritage ” in sports practice.
But “What will be the legacy of Paris 2024 if all French people still do not have access to sports facilities worthy of the name? », launched the senator (Les Républicains) Michel Savin to the Minister of Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, during the vote on the 2023 budget, at the end of November. One figure sums up the scale of the project: 80,000 items of equipment, out of 300,000, require thermal renovationaccording to the National Sports Agency (ANS).
Soaring energy prices are making the situation even more critical, putting local communities – which own 85% of gymnasiums, ice rinks and swimming pools – in a dilemma. Keep these facilities open? It is, even by lowering the temperature there, to face a heavy energy bill. Close them? It is to reduce an already dull sporting practice.
“We have to review our copy”
The city of Compiègne (Oise) has chosen to close its ice rink two and a half months longer than usual (from May to October). While waiting to start a renovation of the equipment, commissioned in 1989. “We must review our copy, tackle the insulation of the roof and the bay windows, a heresy”, explains Christian Tellier, the sports assistant.
In Nîmes, renovation is scheduled for one of the city’s swimming pools: the town hall decided in November – to the great surprise of the population – to close, from 1er January 2023 and for fifteen months, the two Fenouillet basins, dating from the 1980s. Work will be carried out to deal with a sealing problem and reduce energy loss. Building “is a real draft”according to the environment assistant, Pascale Venturini, the elected official in charge of sports, Nicolas Rainville, adding that “the sunroof must be completely renovated”. The closure will lead to “save 200,000 euros in 2023 and 670,000 in 2024”he adds.
Like Compiègne, Limoges (Haute-Vienne) has anticipated the usual closure of its Olympic ice rink, frequented by some 21,000 people a year: it will be April 16, 2023, two months in advance, and until September, announced the town hall, December 8. Savings: 70,000 to 80,000 euros per month.
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