My house is in one region, my garden in another
You can only imagine the administrative headaches for the hamlet of La Lamberdais – its eight homes are split between two communes, two departments and even two regions.
But the good news for residents is that, from January 1, all their homes in north-east France have been “moved” into one commune in Brittany.
For decades, some residents have belonged to the commune of Grand-Fougeray in Ille-et-Vilaine in Brittany while others to Mouais commune in Loire-Atlantique, Pays de la Loire.
It meant the Mouais postman had to cover an extra 4.5km to deliver mail to two people, and one traditional longère received two taxe foncière bills each year because the long low home is half in one region and half in the other.
Local farmer François Ruanlt said: “At one point La Poste got mixed up and wanted me to have two letterboxes. Their computer couldn’t understand it.
“I grew up in my parents’ home on the Grand-Fougeray side of the border but when I built a house just down the lane, I changed department and region.
“We had to be very careful measuring out the land and now there is just a metre between my house and the border, so the house and the garden are not in the same region.”
The main road to the hamlet passes by Grand-Fougeray and Mr Ruanlt said everyone is happy with the move to incorp-orate all the commune there.
Rubbish collection will also improve – at the moment dustmen from the two departments arrive on different days to empty different bins in the hamlet, often having to cross over the border several times.
“The borders might have made sense at the time of the Revolution [when France was divided into departments] but they do not always do so now,” Mr Ruanlt said. “Unfortunately, for us the change will not lead to any reduction in taxes.”
The consolidation of the commune into Grand-Fougeray had to be agreed at national government level and involved a land swap of 2,000m2 of communal land outside the hamlet so that Mouais would not lose out.
