In a ruling today, the Council of State ruled that the municipality of Haarlem has acted correctly by refusing the expansion of the berths. Tomas De Smidt, director of Smidtje Canal Cruises Haarlem, will not be there. “We’re just going to see what is possible,” he says.
Smidtje Canal Cruises, an originally Amsterdam cruise company, has been active in Haarlem since 2016. The company has berths in the Spaarne, just south of the Gravestenenbrug. In 2019, the shipping company applied to expand the number of boats at that location. Smidtje Canal Cruises Haarlem has boats in different sizes: from tour boats to so -called whisper boats.
Expansion to five tour boats
There are officially three tour boats on the spot in the Spaarne. The shipping company wants to increase that number to five. The company also wants to construct a longer boat at the place that is now intended for shorter boats. The municipality of Haarlem is stopping that, because the expansion is not in line with previously made agreements about berths. In addition, the municipality and the shipping company disagree about which boats should be regarded as a tour boat.
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