Housing plans in and around the church in Heeswijk-Dinther ensure that at least twenty associations are on the street. Village house Willibrordcentrum has to make way for the construction of apartments. It makes Frans Jabobs of shooting club Hedilo distraught. “We have no idea where to go. We will soon be homeless.”
It hit the users of the Willibrord Center like a bomb last week. About forty apartments will be built in the Sint-Willibrordkerk and around the neighboring parish. “Now that is a very good plan,” says Joop Akkermans of the board of the Willibrordcentrum. But the fact that there will also be six homes in their village hall next to the church came as a great shock.
The building of the Willibrord Center is owned by the parish. The village hall rents the building for a socio-cultural center. “We do this completely independently. Only with volunteers and without a subsidy from the municipality”, Akkermans explains. “There are two hundred people working here every week.”
“The community of Heeswijk is losing a clubhouse.”
There had been plans for some time to do something with the church, which has now been empty for a year. An earlier plan for a health center fell through. All the while, it seemed that whatever happened around the church, there would be room for the village hall. Until the latest plans came. The parish has canceled the rent on 1 January and apartments will be built in the building.
“The community of Heeswijk is losing a clubhouse,” Akkermans laments. “We are doomed to disappear. It is crazy that twenty associations have to leave for six houses. There is a lot of love in this community house.”
“We have no idea where to go.”
Shooting club Hedilo is one of the clubs that will soon be homeless. The Willibrord Center has even been adapted so that they have a good place there. “We have been shooting here every Friday for a few years now,” says Frans Jacobs. “Finally we had found a permanent place and then someone else would close the door again.”
He can’t get his head around it. “We have no idea where to go.”
The project developer points to the parish in a response. The parish announces that it will come up with a response together with the municipality of Bernheze next week.