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NEWS
The Haute Picardie TGV station now has a new destination: STRASBOURG.
- Haute Picardie TGV => Strasbourg (station) (2hrs 56mins)
Depart: 12:20 Arrive: 15:16
- Strasbourg (station) => Haute Picardie TGV (3hrs)
Depart: 11:56 Arrive: 14:56
Expansion of the Upper Picardy Business Hub.
CCHP (“Communauté de Communes de Haute Picardie”: the Upper Picardy Community of Municipalities) is currently expanding the Upper Picardy Business Hub by 173 acres (70 hectares). The development work began in January 2007 and will finish at the end of 2007.
Seine – North Europe wide-gauge canal.
The wide-gauge canal is a real opportunity for Upper Picardy. On the one hand because it will allow the region to be linked to the rest of Europe and on the other hand because it forms part of a new approach to regional planning and sustainable development.
It will make it possible to offer a real alternative by supplementing a highly saturated motorway network. Environmentally friendly and very economical, river transport contributes to the growth of the Upper Picardy region while preserving its environment and its way of life.
The canal’s construction is going to create 8000 direct and indirect jobs during the five years of work. It will also allow “canal-side” industrial parks to be created and developed, and storage, handling and transport activities to be established in connection with the multimodal transport centres (see the section on the environment, way of life in Upper Picardy, the development projects). All of this could foreshadow a significant economic impact, as well as the expansion of tourism and water leisure activities.
For shippers and transporters, the Seine-North Europe canal will allow an improved logistics organisation thanks to the increased size of the transport (a 4,400-tonne river convoy is equivalent to 220 trucks), and reduced costs. The development of the wide-gauge network will thus improve the competitiveness of the water system, and thus of the businesses.
The forecast schedule for the Seine-North Europe canal:
2007-2009 : setting up the financing and the detailed preliminary design.
Early 2008 : declaration of a Public Utility.
2009 : start of work under the terms of a partnership contract
(2011 – public contracting authority).
2013 : commissioning of the Seine-North Europe canal under the terms of a partnership contract
(2015 – public contracting authority).
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A new TGV destination
Starting on June 10, 2007 the TGV EAST EUROPEAN line will offer a direct TGV link between Upper Picardy and Strasbourg in 3 hours!!
Proposed timetable:
Strasbourg - Haute Picardie TGV: Depart 11:56 Arrive15:05
Haute Picardie TGV - Strasbourg: Depart 12:15 Arrive 15:16
Expansion of the car park at the Haute Picardie TGV station.
The Haute Picardie TGV station celebrated its three-millionth passenger in 2006. In the light of its increasing success, SNCF has decided to increase the size of its car-parking facilities, which have become too small to deal with the large number of vehicles. 200 additional parking spaces will be created during the first half of 2007.
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The airport hub at Méaulte.
June 2007. The Méaulte airport hub will be operational. The aeronautics employment area at Albert, with 2300 jobs, is an economic growth sector: the Méaulte Airbus factory alone employs 1300 people.
The construction of the airport centre will be a new economic impetus for Upper Picardy.
The creation of this centre responds to the goals of developing aeronautic activities linked to sub-contracting, logistics and maintenance.
It is also aimed at eliminating the transporting of outsize loads between the Airbus site at Méaulte and the assembly site at Saint-Nazaire.
The airport hub will be built over a 440-acre (178-ha) area. A 2,200-metre long by 45-metre wide runway will handle the Beluga cargo plane in particular. The site will also have a control tower equipped with a category I I.L.S. (instrument landing system).
Two business parks are going to be created at the same time. One, located at the side of the runway, will be aimed at companies that would benefit from having direct runway access for dedicated freight.
A loading hangar for Beluga planes will be built there.
A business park located in the north will provide a centre for ancillary activities.
Contract management is carried out by the design and implementation body (SMER) of the Upper Picardy airport centre. Aéroport Paris Ingénierie has been selected as the general contractor. The Somme General Council is managing the project.
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