Greater Saumur: a landscape plan to fully embrace the Loire

The Saumur Val de Loire Landscape Plan covers the boundaries of the major bed of the Loire, encompassing ten municipalities, and considers not only the natural and wild aspects of the Loire but also its inhabited and adopted aspects:  

• Gennes-Val-de-Loire, Saint-Clément-des-Levées, Saumur, Villebernier, Souzay-Champigny, Parnay, Turquant, Varennes-sur-Loire, Montsoreau, Fontevraud-l'Abbaye

The challenge is to organise the enhancement of this Loire space by meeting the expectations of current and future users, in a way that respects the historical value of these outstanding landscapes:  

• Engaging in the Loire culture: fostering accountability among riverbank stakeholders with account taken of sometimes conflicting intentions: water quality and resource, access to the river, tourism plans, levees, risks, public spaces, cycling routes, restoration of grazing land, market gardening, biodiversity, etc.
• Integrating new models: anticipating the impact of the social and energy transition on practices and the "Loire landscape"

The project has an operational goal:  

• lead operations to restore links with the river, in urban and natural settings alike;
• adapt practices to the fragility of environments and to the energy transition;
• encourage everyone to play their part in the Loire Landscape, remind them of its history and uphold the ambition over the long-term and with a sense of continuity.

A government grant (worth €30,000) along with technical and methodological support (from the Regional Directorate for the Environment, Planning and Housing/DREAL and French Agency for Ecological Transition/ADEME) will go towards setting up measures meeting the aims in terms of landscape quality. In this way, the Urban Area also becomes a member of the network of Landscape stakeholders at national level.