Municipality of Maashorst is building new reception location for asylum seekers, riots or not

The Brabant municipality of Maashorst will take care of a total of 341 asylum seekers at three locations, in addition to hundreds of Ukrainians and status holders. The city council decided that on Thursday evening, after a meeting that could count on much interest from residents and where the emotions occasionally rose high.

The chairman urged the public to silence several times; One man was guided by the security. However, scenes such as in April did not happen. Then protests against the plans turn into twice in riotwhere demonstrators threw with crush barriers and heavy fireworks, among other things. The police arrested a total of fourteen people.

Maashorst is not the only municipality where protests against asylum seekers centers got out of hand. Mayors were threatened in municipalities of Montferland, Houten, and Tubbergen. In Berlicum, campaigners set fire to car tires at an intended AZC location and hung pig legs on a fence. In Best, just like Uden, part of the municipality of Maashorst, was thrown with fireworks.

Administrative soap

The creation of the current asylum shelter in Maashorst, a temporary emergency shelter in a Van der Valk hotel on the Noordrand van Uden, was also an administrative soap at the end of 2023. Local residents promoted several lawsuits; The shelter was ultimately allowed Open Staying, but the judge ruled that the participation procedure was carelessly implemented.

When Maashorst went looking for new reception locations, it therefore organized three consultation evenings. There arrive – In a municipality of 60,000 inhabitants – only 51 interested in total. Another 36 people filled in an online survey.

In the end, the municipality chose to divide the shelter over three places. There are 250 reception places each in the villages of Zeeland and Schaijk; At a sports park in Uden there is a larger shelter, which can accommodate around 500 people. The 300 asylum seekers in the Van der Valk hotel also have to go there when the current reception closes on October 1, 2026. In addition to the asylum seekers, 390 Ukrainians and 250 others, including status holders, will use the reception places for the time being.

In addition, temporary homes must be built in Uden for starters and people from the municipality who are urgently looking for a house. According to the municipal administration, the current plans are not only the result of the consultation evenings and the survey, but also of « wishes from the city council ».

Accomplished fact

But opposition parties in the council say on Thursday evening that they have been placed for an accomplished fact. Neither residents nor city council were able to participate in alternative locations, that’s how it sounds. Also the desire to open several small locations instead of a large location in Uden could not count on support from the college.

That wish was therefore not feasible, says Mayor Hans van der Pas when asked NRC. « The city council set eighteen principles for the new locations last year. We have tried to meet as much as possible. We have arrived at these three locations. »

As a municipality of citizens you cannot let every step in the process participate, says Van der Pas. « We don’t do that when choosing housing locations either. If you say: » Well, here are ten locations, you can choose, « then zero will remain. Or they come to the weakest neighborhoods that are the least able to litigate. »

Not one criminal offense

Van der Pas’ Colleague, Mayor Mark Boumans van Doetinchem, told the NOS last month to see a connection between the intensity of the protests and the asylum policy of the Cabinet Schoof. « Since the Spreading Act has been discussed, the protests have also been back, » thus Boumans, who is also chairman of the advisory committee asylum and migration of the VNG.

Van der Pas joins this. In the meantime, the asylum seekers themselves hardly cause any problems, the mayor says: « Every two weeks we have contact with the COA about the location in the Van der Valk hotel. In the year and a half that the asylum seekers are now there, no one criminal offense was committed. »

Councilor Emiel Jozephs of Coalitiepart Jong Maashorst goes one step further during the meeting: « The only problems and unrest we have had in our municipality in the past period were the riots during demonstrations about housing this target group. »

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