The port of Baiona has registered one of its historic days this Thursday with the inauguration of the new commercial dock Armand-Gommès, an extension of the Castel dock in what is the second phase of the restructuring of the Blancpignon docks, a 19-month, 26-million-euro project.
Attending the event were Alain Rousset, president of the Regional Council of New Aquitaine; Mathieu Bergé, regional councilor in charge of ports; Sandrine Derville, vice president of New Aquitaine; Georges Strullu, president of the Supervisory Board of the Port Society Port of Baiona; Pascal Marty, president of the port of Baiona, with its director, Bruno Vignes; Mathieu Duhamel, subprefect of Bayonne; André Garreta, president of the CCI of the Basque Country of Baiona; and François Lafitte, president of the CCI of the Landes, in addition to the mayors of the concerned municipalities and other figures of local relevance.
The new Armand-Gommès dock, 180 meters in length, symbolizes the modernization of the commercial port of Baiona, which is owned by the New Aquitaine region. It now allows for a 560-meter berthing front, including 360 meters on the jetty with the Castel dock, enabling it to accommodate two large vessels simultaneously. By 2027, this new dock will be equipped with a new high-performance electric crane, with a capacity of up to 60 tons, and the ability to handle containers.
Built to accommodate higher-capacity vessels and reinforce intermodality, this strategic structure represents a total investment of 26 million euros for the New Aquitaine Region, including 24 million euros dedicated to construction works, one million euros to engineering studies, and another million for compensatory environmental measures, such as artificial reefs, or the renaturalization of the Lazaret area.
Furthermore, the Port Society Port of Baiona carried out the superstructure works, for an amount of 4.5 million euros. To encourage the modal shift to land, 1,200 linear meters of additional railway tracks have been built, 60% of which are financed by the State-Region Plan Contract (CPER).
The works have also involved a new perimeter enclosure, with two new secure access points, as well as the pre-installation for the future establishment of electrification, OPS.
This project is also part of a general development logic for the Blancpignon port area, which proposes the reclassification of the roads serving the area and the development of its jetty.
It marks a new generation of high-performance port structures, at the service of the economic and logistical development of the territory, in addition to hosting facilities for private operators in its vicinity.
The protocol event began with an introduction by the president of the port of Baiona, Pascal Marty, who then gave the floor to the various speakers such as Stéphane Gubert, Benjamin Blanc, Pierre Ferreira and Didier Lecuyer, technical managers of a project that lasted 19 months to “rebuild an infrastructure dating from the 1960s” of the last century.
Georges Strullu, as president of the Board of Directors, explained the new governance model that the port of Baiona has adopted, based on a Port Society participated by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region, the CCI of Baiona Pays Basque and the CCI of Landes as shareholders.
After the speeches by André Garreta, François Lafitte and Mathieu Duhamel, it was Alain Rousset who was tasked with closing the event with a speech in which he pointed out that ports “are more than places for commercial exchange” since today they champion economic, ecological and innovative policies, making it “necessary to also reflect on their industrial role”.
Regarding the installation’s cross-border role, Rousset stated that Baiona is the connecting point between France and Spain, the epicenter of agricultural, environmental and industrial activities, among others. This central point also presents challenges, such as the 10,000 trucks that cross the border daily and which “force” the advancement of investments in efficient rail connections that also allow for an improvement in intermodality. He called for the development of ro-ro traffic “like the Spanish ports of Bilbao, Pasaia and Santander have” to transport rolling freight by sea to the center of Europe.
The transfer of goods from road to ship and rail “is fundamental” and for this a “conjunction of wills” between the four ports, united in Aquitaine Ports Link (La Rochelle, Rochefort, Bordeaux and Baiona), is necessary, as well as a common goal in investments, recalling that investments in these infrastructures “are multiplied by four in the local economy”.
To conclude, Alain Rousset congratulated those responsible for the port of Baiona for the achievement of this new equipment and recalled that the Port Society has carried out the investments, and will continue to do so in the future, so that industrial and logistical players can continue to develop “at full capacity” in the port of Baiona.
