New La Tania Lifts Confirmed - work starting in Spring 2013
La Tania Council and S3V sign off investment plan
27 December 2013
The signed off new lift developments - click on image for full size
Confirmation and clarification on the 3 new lifts (estimated positions above) being put in place with work initially planned to start next year and take up to 5 years. There is also a new green run crossing the forest on the Ski de Fond track - not really sure exactly of the line of this yet.
The Council Minutes signing off the plan in October included a commitment to run the gondola 6 days a week for free in Summer too. More also in our What's New 2013 page.
The Courchevel Valley Mountain Master Plan was revealed back in May 2012 with plans for 16 new lifts but didn't include any further uplift from La Tania resort level. This has now been resolved and a new chair will go up to the top of the La Tania Gondola from the current "Saaz" car park near the bottom gondola station.
This is of course based on the go ahead for the large "Moretta Village" development in the car park area rumoured to involve an all inclusive Mark Warner / Club Med type development with some "commercial" building as well - shops, bars, restaurants, night club, ski hire - who knows what yet and if the finance is there yet.
The new chair from Le Praz will arrive at the top of the La Tania Gondola and a second chair to access Courchevel will go up from approximately where the Cretes chair currently finishes - the old lifts made redundant or little used by the new ones will be removed including Foret, Cretes and the Gros Murger drag - probably the Bouc Blanc and Praz Juget drags too.
Comment:
Not something I normally do but here goes...
Firstly it's a relief that there will be some further uplift from resort level after a couple of 2-day gondola outages in the last two years and with the proposed new development it will be needed. I also understand that having the new chair from near the gondola station (like replacing the drag line) was not feasible and of course chairs don't go around corners like drag lifts! Anyway, lets hope the points below are addressed ok and I'd welcome your comments on the next developments too - we'll gather them together and send them of to the Mairee and S3V.
Toffa.
1. Will the new Moretta Village development and chair lift split La Tania in to two resorts? One of La Tania's greatest attributes is the compactness of the resort, will easy access be made from the chalet area for instance?
2. Will the new Le Praz chair cause congestion at the top of the gondola? Ok there is another chair going up but weekend coach day trippers cause big queues in Le Praz, let's hope the queues are not simply being transported there.
3. What is the benefit to La Tania of the new Le Praz lift (ok, going in on "our patch" if you like) - apart from the huge benefit to the Bouc Blanc Restaurant of course!
4. Removal of all drag lifts is a poor idea as they are a back up on poor weather days.
5. The new Moretta Village development is rumoured to have a multi-national all inclusive operation involved - surely this won't benefit independent businesses much and when does the development stop? When we reach Courchevel?
6. The car parking situation is already a problem - the new development must keep the existing spaces and have lots of additional parking. Will it be free still or will it be a chargeable multi story underground which will lead to additional problems of vehicles being parked illegally? Will there still be camper van parking allowed? The centre of resort is starting to look shabby - especially when the snow melts, shouldn't some money be spent there first?
7. The work is reported to take 5 years - seems a long time. Does this mean that the go ahead is not certain to start in Spring 2013? The whole Saulire Express 1 & 2 was built in 2 years.
8. The commitment to running the gondola free for 6 days a week in Summer is good news and will inject some Summer Life in to the resort after being a building site for the last 2 years but why switch it off on a Saturday and kill the weekends? Have Wednesday off instead for example.
9. The whole new lift infrastructure plans are to be welcomed including the Mountain Master Plan with 16 new lifts, but faster, higher capacity lifts (and bringing Bozel in too) lead to more crowded pistes - is there any consideration to opening new areas, new pistes or new mountains - like throwing a Mont Vallon type lift in for example?
10. How about a permanent bus link to Méribel? La Tania becomes a hub in the middle then!
Anyway...
Hundreds of thousands of euro have been spent on planning the new lift infrastructure and on all future developments in the resorts, I'm sure the detailed analysis by industry experts and the professionalism of the S3V lift company will lead to the correct work being carried out, indeed I'm sure the above points have been raised before and there will be some work to help address them. #justsaying.. Toffa
And from an an apartment owner for 10 years paying €1500 a year in local taxes... "Hmmm, and I can't have any say or vote on anything that may change the resort, can't even get any kind of discount on a season pass after all those local taxes I've paid - this is the resort that turned their crèche in to a bar a few years ago before having a replacement ready remember... Hmmmm..."
page last updated 27/12/12
