It is fighting for a parking space in the Bloemenwijk in Schijndel during the Easter weekend. Festival visitors who go to Paaspop park the car en masse in the neighborhood because it is free there. This causes frustration for local residents, who cannot help but leave their cars unused for four days. “If you can pay Easter doll, you can also pay a parking space,” says local resident Petra.
“It is very busy in the street with Paaspop. All parking spaces are full of cars,” says Martin, who lives in Tulpstraat. “You can’t get away with the car, because then you no longer have a place when you come back. I go by bike from home during the Easter weekend.”
Yet the problem is not solved with that. What if you urgently need the car and come back? “Then you can park outside the neighborhood, because it is so full here,” says Martin.
Petra lives in the Leliestraat and also annoys the crowds. “As a resident you really have a problem. The hustle and bustle starts on Friday afternoon and continues until PaaSpop is over. Just shopping is not possible. Because when you come back, there is no room anymore and you have to walk far from your parking space home.”
Local residents realize that the festival is only three days a year, but that does not make parking pressure any less annoying. “I wish the visitors their fun, but I don’t think the neighborhood should suffer from it,” says Petra.
There is no shortage of parking spaces for festival -goers. Visitors can park the car at Autotron in Rosmalen and take the shuttle bus to the site.
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“And they have six hectares of parking spaces next to the site,” says Martin. “But on the few hundred euros for a festival that ten is just a little too much for parking. Saves two beers again.”
Petra doesn’t understand that. “If you can pay Easter doll, you can also pay a parking space.” Her neighbor Carlo herself went to the festival for years and understands the visitors somewhere.
“There have been years that visitors were stuck in the mud on the pasture where you could park. I understand that you would rather be paved and it is also free here,” he says.
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However, Carlo also suffers from the parking festival visitors. “It’s not nice. They park on the sidewalk and for the garage doors behind it. As a resident you don’t get the car anywhere anymore.”
That has sometimes led to quarrels in the past, Martin knows. “Last year there was a fight, because someone had parked for a garage. Then the enforcement comes and they will talk to the people, but there will never be a tow truck,” he says.
Signs and fences are there to navigate to the parking spaces of the festival or to close streets in the Bloemenwijk. “But they are simply put aside,” says local resident Bep. “I keep my car at home.”
Reaction of the municipality
The municipality of Meierijstad says that the parking problems in the Bloemenwijk have the full attention of the municipality and the organization of Paaspop. “In our eyes, the organization can no longer do to tackle the parking problems in the neighborhood. There is plenty of reference to parking spaces, bicycle facilities and the shuttle service. It is public road and the discipline of visitors. There are traffic controllers in crucial places,” says a spokesperson for the municipality.
The municipality and the police continue to take enforcement action against people who park incorrectly. “The enforcers of the municipality, but also the police are visibly acting against fault parking. Experience shows that visitors and residents simply ignore and put off signs and deposits.”
Nevertheless, according to local resident Martin, the enforcers could not do much against the parking pressure in the neighborhood in previous years. “They are there when people go to the festival in the afternoon, but are away in the evening when it is finished, just like the signs and fences. Then the chaos only starts. The people parked here must leave. But a lot of festival visitors are also picked up by taxis or acquaintances at the swimming pool road,” he says.
The local residents see that the festival itself takes everything out of the closet to arrange enough parking spaces. They find it annoying that the visitors just don’t respond to it. “If you don’t want to pay, you have a acquaintance or taxi taken or picked up,” Petra advises visitors.
Tell us your Paaspop story!
Omroep Brabant is there for three days at Paaspop 2025. Do you have a fun, funny, sad or remarkable story about Paaspop? Or are you planning something special at the festival? For example, do you put a good friend in the spotlight, do you have something to celebrate or do you think of someone who can’t be there? Let us go through [email protected] know!