The previous building permit had been refused by the State services to this same SAS Au marché des Druides in December 2014. At that time, an archaeological study had been carried out and concluded that work on the site of the menhirs could “damage elements of the archaeological heritage”.
Why was a new building permit granted? Some think that an application to be submitted at the end of September for the registration of “397 megaliths on the banks of Carnac and Morbihan, spread over 27 municipalities” a UNESCO World Heritage Site has upset the situation and local elected officials have rushed to build or develop quickly because no longer possible after validation of this application.
Olivier Lepick, the mayor of Carnac, claims not to have been aware of the registration of the site on the Atlas of Heritage. He points out that the building permit has been “granted by the town hall and state services” and that he has “scrupulously complied with the law”. He is himself the president of the association Landscapes of the megaliths, which carries the application file for UNESCO World Heritage. It targets an error in the update of the Local Urban Plan (PLU) since the discoveries made in 2015. According to Olivier Lepick, the error comes from the fact that the DRAC had registered the site of the menhirs in the prescription zone in the old land use plan (POS), but not in the PLU.
On the side of the SAS, which requested the building permit, the manager, Stéphane Doriel, claims to have been informed of nothing at all. He even explains that the previous permit refused in 2014 was due to a wetland problem. “I am not an archaeologist, I do not know the menhirs; there are low walls everywhere. If we had known that, we would have acted differently, of course!”.
A local scandal in perspective. And a massacre of our common heritage.
The municipality of Carnac and the neighboring one of Trinité-sur-Mer are home to more than 4000 menhirs.
#Scandal #Carnac #menhirs #destroyed…to #build #Bricolage
