The man at the Mairie

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Christian Dal Moro at the town hall recently. His title is Chargé de mission Proximité Quartier, and what that means is that he deals with residents complaints and he’s been in the job for over a year.

People either telephone or come to him with their complaints, but he doesn’t mind if you stop him in the street! He tries to find a solution himself and if he can’t, then he can normally pass you to the right person or department.

Christian explains: ‘We try to resolve the issue as best we can and if not we at least have an answer to each question, if not a solution.’

That’s a tall order. And it means that he meets people when they are stressed and probably quite negative. I’m not sure it’s a job for everyone.

‘It’s funny,’ he recounts, ‘because it’s very rare that you get a phone call saying thank you, people just move on to the next thing.'

So what’s the most popular complaint? I enquire with some trepidation.

‘Normally about trees at the boundary line of a property. If you plant a tree that is 2 metres from the border to your neighbour it can be up to 2 metres in height. If you plant a bush or tree that you plan to keep chopped to less than 2m the distance from the boundary need only be half a metre.’

The other area that concerns people is surface water, potholes and flooding. As most people will know we’ve been working on Route Notre Dame since October and we are hopeful of it being ready to re-open by the end of April weather willing.

While redirecting the rainwater in large new pipes, they’ve hit a few obstacles along the way though including lots of problem bedrock between 6 to 8 metres down.

‘That’s one of the problems in this whole region,’ Christian explains. ‘It’s why historically olive trees and vines did so well here and not much else!’

If you’d like to get in touch with Christian you can do so at the town hall or by emailing c.dalmoro@ville-roquefort-les-pins.fr or by calling him on 04 92 60 35 03 or 06 01 72 09 79.