The municipality of Meppel is considering the reception of refugees on a cruise ship on the Zomerdijk in Meppel with another two years to be extended. The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) wants to ask the municipality to extend this form of reception until February 2028.
At the end of 2022, the municipality of Meppel started taking care of refugees on boats. Two smaller asylum boats were replaced more than a year ago by a larger cruise ship as an asylum ship, which is moored on the Zomerdijk. There is room for 193 people. The agreement with the COA for the reception on the cruise ship was extended by two years on February last year until February 2026. The COA would now like to add two more years.
The Meppel College submits that question to the city council. In a memo to the council, the municipality gives a state of affairs regarding the reception of refugees.
In addition to the possible extension of reception on the asylum boat, Meppel is also working on the expansion of the Ukrainian refugees reception. For Meppel, that shelter is primarily concentrated in buildings of the former Isala hospital and the former Reggersoord nursing home. From April 2022, the municipality of Meppel had 130 beds available for refugees from Ukraine. That number has since been expanded to 475 beds and the municipality expects that another 70 beds will be added in June. This means that Ukrainian care is fully occupied at that location.
In December the former hospital in Meppel was sold to the Lenferink Group. It has been agreed with the real estate company that the municipality can certainly rent the location for another three years for the reception of refugees. But here too the hope for more long -term care is. That is why the Meppel College asks the city council to think along about the future-proofness of the Ukraine daycare.
The municipality of Meppel also announced in the Memo released that it meets the task when it comes to the reception of Ukrainians and for the emergency shelter of refugees. In the housing of status holders, Meppel says he is already a few for the task. Only at the end of last year four people were not enough. The municipality of Meppel expects to meet the obligation at the end of this year and also to have worked away the backlog of last year.