Many changes are coming for employees. They sometimes get quite a bit of travel time. “We still have time to get used to it, because it will take some years before that takes place,” says Meijer. “But of course there are people who live here in the region and have worked here for a long time. That has an impact for them.”
Meijer hopes that the facilities will be carefully considered during the move. “Of course we have the sport here, the simulator (for shooting lessons, ed.), but also the accessibility of the railway station and the A28. That makes Assen a very nice barracks to have a school here.”
That is not yet in order in Havelte. The accessibility of the Johannes Postkazerne in Havelte is really different from the barracks in Assen. “We don’t have a train station in Havelte,” says Meijer. “Our students are 17, 18 or sometimes 19 years old. Some don’t have their driver’s license yet and don’t have a car. So we really depend on public transport.” Soldiers now sometimes come by public transport bicycle from the station in Steenwijk.
The Ministry of Defense has said it will start working on a mobility plan. “That could be public transport in the form of a bus, that could be innovative mobility, that could be a bicycle,” Van der Maat explained last week. “We have said to each other that we do not want to pin ourselves down to the fact that it must be bus line x.”
The province of Drenthe will take the lead. “We have a public transport agency together with Groningen and good contacts with Overijssel. We will all look very closely at that,” said Jetta Klijnsma during the press conference last week.