Photo: House with cycling path running through it is on sale in France

A house has gone on sale in western France - with a cycling path running straight through it.

The 137m2 house is on a road between two villages - Grandchamp des Fontaines and Treillières near Nantes - that are linked by a bike path.

The route was built to avoid people having to make a major detour from the departmental road to go between the two villages. Around 25,000 bikes passed through it last year.

The house was bought by the local mairie during the construction of the cycle path and is now going back on the market for €300,000.

Originally, the cycle path was meant to go between the house and the nearby road but it was too narrow so it was decided to go through the house instead.

Now the property has a large arch on the ground floor to accommodate the path, with a first-floor room above.

To make room, a staircase was moved into the living room, but no other structural changes were made. The home still contains three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The property also includes a 1,300m2 garden.

"It was a daring project,” said Wilfried Braud, head of the transport department of the Communauté de communes Erdre et Gesvres, to which the two villages belong. “But it was carried out with good understanding and in consultation with local residents.”

Mr Braud added the future buyer of the home need not worry about noise from the road or cycle path, saying that the builders “raised the floor” of the property and “added a thick slab” as part of the €80,000 project, to ensure that there is “no noise pollution from the cycle path into the house”.

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