During a lawsuit in The Hague, residents of the sustainkampweg in Weerdinge made an urgent appeal to the Council of State to put a stop to the installation of a 40 -meter high telecomast near their home.
Only at this stage the judge did not seem to be able to do much more for the local residents. After all, the municipality of Emmen already granted a permit to telecom company Vodafone in October 2022 for the placement of the new Antennemast. In the months before, the residents had constantly contacted the municipality and Vodafone to move them to find another location, further away from the houses.
Only the municipality and Vodafone did not listen and alternatives suggested by De Weerdinger. Eventually Emmen granted a permit to Vodafone on October 18, 2022.
The publication of that permit ended up in the municipal magazine of November 1. For that reason, the lawyer of De Weerdinger assumed that November 1 was the publication date and that he still had six weeks to submit an objection. He did that on December 9. The municipality of Emmen said too late. Because the official publication was on October 18. And that meant that the deadline for the objection procedure had expired at the end of November of that year.
The lawyer of De Weerdinger believes that this is extremely unreasonable and told the Council of State that the publication was anything but clear and that the error should not be borne by the residents.
In addition, the residents had expected to get a signal from the municipality as soon as she had granted the permit to Vodafone. But the municipality did not do that. “We are not legally obliged to do so,” said a municipal lawyer. The Weerdingers are deeply disappointed about this.
According to a Vodafone spokeswoman, they sent another email to the Weerdinger counsel at the beginning of November that they already had a permit. In short, according to Emmen and Vodafone the mistake lies with the counsel.
The Council of State will take a good look in the coming weeks whether and whoever was responsible for the objection that has been submitted late. If the Weerdingers are still right, the municipality of Emmen will still have to deal with their objections. The Antennemast is already there. Because he wants to build Vodafone between 12 and 17 March on the foundation that is already ready.
Ruling will follow in a few weeks.