Negotiations about compensation will take place in the near future. “I think about money,” says Martens. Because he doesn’t need to move. “They have indicated that they have acquired land in Smilde. But that is on the other side of the Canal. I have no interest in going there at all.”
More than 1,204 comments were received on Defense’s expansion plan. “Those who were here now were not able to go through it because there was no time,” says arable farmer Marieke Dikboom from Smilde. “Belittlement of us,” she thinks. “It could have at least been watched.”
Dikboom and her brother want to take over the family business with arable farming and a farm shop, but they lose almost all their land. “I think we have 15 hectares left, so we have to make do with that.”
Due to the loss of land, the company cannot continue to exist as it currently does. “But we don’t know yet how,” says Dikboom. “We specifically asked Defense: ‘Do we have a future here?’ We were clearly told: ‘We think there is a future for you here’. So we can take over. On the one hand, that is a burden off my shoulders, on the other hand, you just want the certainty that we can continue.”
Dairy farming family Ter Braak calls the outcome ‘unfair’. “That this is being forced down your throat,” sighs father Erik ter Braak. “You have no say. They don’t listen. You have submitted a point of view, and it is simply pushed aside. It’s a matter of saying yes and amen and they just continue.”
Now that the expansion plans are final, the dairy farm in Laaghalen will have to move. For Ter Braak there is only one remedy after the information meeting in ‘t Haoler Hoes. “Clear my head by going back to work among the cows. That’s my thing, that’s why I became a farmer. And forget about this for today as quickly as possible.”
Mayor Jan Zwiers of the municipality of Midden-Drenthe calls it ‘a pretty bad day for our residents’. “It also evokes a lot of emotion for us as a municipality. We have also seen that relatively little has been done with our view.”
Has the municipality done enough to stop this outcome? “You see that a project decision is being made. That sounds technical, but it actually means that we are being overruled as a municipality. This also means that when issuing the permits that we will soon have to take care of, we have to test what the defense has instructed us to do.”
Zwiers emphasizes that Defense must compensate the affected residents ‘generously’. “That is also what the State Secretary has promised us, that is a commitment. But the concept of generous has not yet been interpreted. And we are really going to put our finger on that now.” Midden-Drenthe hopes to submit a proposal to the State Secretary at the beginning of March.
Dorpsbelangen Hooghalen is also not happy with the outcome of the two meetings. “We are extremely disappointed that nothing has been removed,” says chairman Henk Boer. “We secretly hoped that the area would become smaller.”
Boer is particularly upset that the Laaghaler es, an area with a protected status, is also included. “We really hoped it would be spared.”
Yet there is little choice but to accept the outcome, says Boer. “What can we do about it? We have submitted a point of view, which has not been honored. We are now trying to achieve some things in the area development, such as keeping noise and aircraft movements not too close to inhabited areas.”