Territorial visit to the Roumois

The visit to the Roumois Seine local council community, downstream from Rouen, was organised so as to examine the strengths of this territory during the candidacy to be a European Capital of Culture in 2028.

Vincent Martin, the President of the Roumois Seine local council community was accompanied by his vice-presidents, Sylvain Bonenfant and Gwendoline Presle to welcome Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol and part of the Rouen Seine Normande 2028 team. This was thus a chance to list what the Roumois region could bring to the candidacy to the European Capital Culture label.

The visit began with the Barneville panorama, which offers one of the finest views of the Seine Normande valley. There, a work meeting provided the opportunity to examine the main points of interest of the local council community, from the Route des Chaumières to the Marais Vernier, while taking in especially the Maison de la Terre, the Moulin Amour, or else the Château de Tilly.

The visit to the Château de la Mésangère highlighted this graceful site which charmed La Fontaine, and whose current owners are thoroughly renovating. In the park, the sculptures rival with the three-hundred-year-old lime trees in this garden designed by Lenôtre.

The objective of these territorial visits is to gauge, with the councillors and the teams of the territories in question, the fit between the public policies which they are carrying out and the main themes conveyed by the candidacy: that of the Seine Normande Valley, turning towards future generations and emphasising the notion of shared knowledge.

Identifying each territory’s singularities (geographic, historic, patrimonial) and expectations, defining the project’s “embarkment quays”, as genuine points of entry into the Capital (with a rationale of intermodality and the development of soft mobility infrastructures), identifying and involving its stakeholders (institutional and economic actors, the cultural or social associative milieu, its inhabitants), referencing the structural projects (third places, rehabilitations, innovative programmes…) which will nourish the candidacy and contribute to the collective construction of the project: this is what will be expected from these vital encounters for the drafting of the candidacy dossier which will be submitted in late 2022 to the European Jury, appointed to choose among the applicant French cities for 2028. The visits started in January 2022 and will end in July.