Mountain village in the Jura wants one of a kind milk raise restored

The mountain milk churn carry at Blois-sur-Seille in the Jura, a village of about 100 inhabitants, opened in 1893 and was in use until eventually the Comté cheese dairy closed in 1982.

Locals now want to see it renovated. Mayor Laurent Besançon hopes it will be a tourist attraction.

“When it was performing, the milk churn elevate was a big reduction to farmers up in the mountain,” mentioned Mr Besançon.

“As considerably as we know, it is the only just one of its type in France.” A neighborhood farmer experienced the idea immediately after completing his armed forces support in Grenoble, where by the army utilised a similar program to carry stone down the mountain.

Back again in the Jura, he received alongside one another with 7 other farmers and introduced in a builder from close by Saint-Lamain to build it.

“It is 500 metres lengthy, likely up 200 metres in peak.

“It features applying gravity to deliver the vacant churns back again uphill as the entire kinds are sent down. Some 200 litres of milk could be transported on every single journey. It definitely was an ingenious program.” It will cost about €100,000 to renovate as numerous of the sections need to have changing.

“We have been keeping fundraising activities with the affiliation Les Loups de Blois to elevate dollars to get the elevate doing the job all over again but our village is far too tiny to make the total of money we will need, so we are asking for assist.

“The Fondation du Patrimoine, which supports tasks to conserve local heritage, has specified us an attraction page on its website.”

Mr Besançon hopes they will start renovation will work at the get started of this summertime so it can open in autumn.

In the meantime, the federal government has declared ski lifts will not open on February 1 and are most likely to keep shut for the entire month. This is negative news for ski resorts which hoped to make up some of the losses faced at Xmas in the course of the February faculty vacations.