“The idea was to grow old here, not to have to start over.” The future is shaky for residents of Moerdijk. The village may have to make way for industry. The final decision will have to wait a while, but the consequences are already being felt by people who have built their lives here.
How residents deal with that uncertainty is to be seen in Meanwhile in Moerdijka new series on Brabant+. It follows residents in a period when these big plans are hanging over their heads, but concrete answers are still lacking.
Double farewell for shrimp fisherman
For Koos de Visser, this uncertainty comes on top of another farewell. This year he will stop fishing for shrimp in the North Sea because the rules are becoming stricter. “We are now dismantling the ship. Then the chapter is finished.” If Moerdijk disappears, he will also lose his house in a while. “I’m not going to be the first to leave,” he says with a smile. “But I also make sure I’m not the last.”
Martin Brusse also imagined his future in Moerdijk differently. Eight years ago he moved to the village with his wife. They invested in solar panels and a pellet stove. “The idea was to grow old here,” says the retired former teacher. “The fact that this is now suddenly so uncertain is hard.”
Reimbursement of costs
Brusse is especially angry about the compensation scheme. “The home value is reimbursed, but all the extra costs? Moving, starting over, the fact that you have to leave. Hardly any attention is paid to that.” Brusse is thinking of moving to Belgium.
Not everyone is counting on leaving yet. Jacques van IJsseldijk, who lives just outside Moerdijk and collects old city buses, continues to wait and see. “I’m in a good place here,” he says. “And besides, the decision has not yet been made. Nothing is certain.”
It will take until the summer before the residents of the village really have clarity. The municipality has already agreed to the plan to close the village, but the government and the municipality wanted more time to think about it. And so the people of Moerdijk are in uncertainty for the time being.
