Delfzijl has a beach, the beach has visitors and the visitors are thirsty. Will the village by the sea get a beach pavilion?
The children dig a hole, Nicole (37) and Jeroen (40) watch. The couple is sitting on the beach of Delfzijl on Saturday afternoon and it is about thirty degrees. A cold beer would go in right now. “I think that pavilion is a good idea,” says Nicole. “Then we would definitely go here more often,” says Jeroen.
The plans
Siewert van der Zweep and partner Henk Koetze are willing. The catering entrepreneurs from Delfzijl have been planning for a pavilion for years. The drawings are there. Van der Zweep wants a terrace of three hundred square meters and a covered part of another 324 square meters. “We are making a balustrade all around so that people can also take a look without ordering something immediately.”
After the summer holidays
But building a beach pavilion is not easy. Alderman Annalies Usmany-Dallinga likes it, but a bit smaller: 400 square meters instead of the 624 square meters of Van der Zweep and Koetze. The city council will discuss this plan after the summer.
The beach has been there for two years now. Shouldn’t that council meeting have taken place three years earlier? “The question was not there then,” says Usmany-Dallinga. “We are not going to change a zoning plan if there is no concrete plan.”
Not too fast, not too big
Herman and Fred don’t have to do it too quickly either. The football friends are on the dike. Herman on his sports bike, Fred on an e-bike. The gentlemen know each other from football club NEC and met on the dike.
“We just happened to be talking about it. It is good that a large building was not immediately built there,” says Herman. The gentlemen look through their sunglasses again and agree. Fine if something comes up, but it doesn’t have to be too big. “What if it goes bankrupt,” says Herman. “Who’s going to break it down then?”
The men cycle on. Fred: “We are going to Havenzicht, drinking a nice beer.”
‘With your feet in the mud’
And then there is Bert Boer, the owner of the Eemshotel. His company is partly on the dike, partly in the Eems, next to the place where the pavilion is to be built. “I don’t believe it can be done.” A beach club first and foremost needs a beach, he believes. With a big laugh: “When it is low tide here you stand with your feet in the mud.”