Information on the renewal of the Chalais-Vercorin cable car
Following the completion of the land-use planning procedure requesting a partial amendment to the zoning plan (PAZ) and the municipal building and zoning regulations (RCCZ) conducted by the Municipality of Chalais, the procedure for approving the plans for the new cable car, led by Téléphérique Chalais-Vercorin SA (TCV), was able to resume at the Federal Office of Transport (FOT).
The Federal Court's decision to reject the appeals of those opposed to this amendment definitively confirmed the route of the future facility that will connect Chalais and Vercorin.
The approval process for the plans had begun at the same time as that conducted by the municipality of Chalais, but had been suspended by the FOT when the appeals were filed by opponents, pending the conclusions related to land use planning.
Now that it has been relaunched, the cable car project has had to be revised to incorporate the technical and legal changes that have taken place since 2018, which has involved a lot of work updating the files. Once the project had been updated, taking care not to infringe on the rights of third parties, the various federal and cantonal offices, including the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) and the Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA), submitted their preliminary opinions with various conditions to be met by TCV before and after obtaining approval of the plans. It is now up to our company to respond to these preliminary opinions and fulfil our obligations in order to obtain the OFT's approval of the plans as soon as possible.
At the same time, the final funding application for the facility has been submitted to both the Canton of Valais and the FOT's financing section. This application takes into account both the improvements made to the project, particularly in terms of the environmental footprint of the future facility, and the price increases recorded since the initial application was submitted in 2018. As a reminder, as it is integrated into the federal and cantonal public transport network, the new facility will be 85% financed by federal and cantonal funds. Any future operating deficits will continue to be covered by the canton and the Confederation.
So, if everything goes as expected, TCV could get the go-ahead for both the plans and the funding for the project by the end of 2025. What happens next will depend on what the opponents decide to do. They could either appeal the decision or let the project get started in the first half of 2026.
