2023-05-06 06:00:00
Abandoned for more than ten years, the building of the former Solvay association in Couillet has become a popular place for urbexers and… vandals who have made it a playground. Thus everything that might be ransacked has summer and it is in vain to look on the facades of this property classified as Walloon Heritage for a window pane that is still intact.
Before the covid, a private promoter (Editor’s note: the former project manager of the Rive Gauche shopping center Raphaël Pollet) had acquired it in the hope of proposing to the city a renovation / re-use of the old swimming pool . This hypothesis seems to have lived if we are to believe the mayor Paul Magnette questioned by the DéFI councilor Jean-Noël Gillard in the last bulletin of written questions from the municipal council.
In a logic of balanced distribution of collective facilities on the territory, such a project had actually emerged before the covid, in order to provide the southern district with a covered swimming pool. “In a context where the City is carrying out the renovation of two communal swimming pools, that of Marchienne (West district) and that of the Stade Yernaux in Montignies-sur-Sambre (East district), it is no longer possible for it to free up in the short term additional investment capacities, even deducting the regional subsidies that might have been obtained”notes the mayor. “It is not for me to comment on the financial analysis of a private operation, but it is obvious that the main difficulty arises in terms of costs, both rehabilitation and operation.”
To the idea of an identical conservation restoration of the old Solvay friendly, Paul Magnette opposes that of studying alternatives. “Possibilities of subsidies exist within the framework of the regional heritage policy, the owner has been precisely informed. They relate as much to the renovation of the exterior envelope as to the restoration of the interior spaces”he says.
Security measures have been taken by the new owner to limit intrusions.
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