For years, the Expo Hall in Assen was an emergency shelter for asylum seekers. But the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) will finally have the hall empty by December 31st. “All asylum seekers will then be gone.”
This is what COA spokesperson Alet Bouwmeester says. Of the five hundred reception places in the event hall, approximately two hundred are currently still in use.
The hall must also be empty by December 31st. That is a strict deadline set by the municipality of Assen. The emergency shelter in the hall at the TT Circuit has been extended time and time again, because the need was still great. Too few municipalities appeared to be prepared to also receive asylum seekers.
As a result, COA was constantly short of reception places and the hall in Assen remained desperately needed. Even when refugees in Ter Apel had to sleep in front of the gate of the registration center, Assen was prepared to keep the shelter open. But earlier this year, the municipality indicated that the shelter should really end after 2025.
She also decided to extend the asylum center at the Schepersmaat, where a thousand asylum seekers are staying, for another fifteen years. And Assen believes that as a municipality it is doing enough in the asylum crisis.
According to Bouwmeester, everything will go well with the agreement. “In terms of refugees, the hall will soon be empty as of January 1. We still need time until March 1 to clean everything up. Because there are still all kinds of our things, and we have made adjustments to the hall to make the shelter more livable. So it will only be possible to do it later.”
As of November 1, there will be an admission stop for new refugees at the Asser emergency location. The hall has been gradually emptying since then. Groups of asylum seekers from the Expo Hall are housed in batches elsewhere in the country as soon as a place becomes available in the asylum seeker’s centre. “So they don’t leave Assen by bus loads at the same time. And so it will become emptier here little by little in the coming days,” says Bouwmeester.
Earlier this week there was a meeting where asylum seekers and COA employees could say goodbye to each other. Staff at the Assen location will be working at other locations from January 1.
Owner the Lenferink Group from Zwolle has plans for a day attraction for the Expo Hall. The hall at the TT Circuit must become a place where mobility, technology and motorsport come together.