No more ATM, no package point and even for groceries you can no longer go to Huijbergen. The only supermarket that the village still had has been closed since this week. Not profitable anymore. And so now residents now have to drive to Hoogerheide for just about all the much needed facilities. The neighborhood fears that it is the death blow for Huijbergen. And this is not the first village where such a facility disappears.
“It is a disaster for the village,” says Alphons van Zunderd, who has been living in Huijbergen for forty years. “We have a lot of elderly people here with a walker. They came to the supermarket every day and that is no longer possible. But not just that. Even picking up packages or pin money is no longer possible here.”
The supermarket is closed because the Plus, which has taken over all Coop stores, finds the store too small. In the meantime, an apartment complex is being built further down the street, where the Coop would actually come. PLUS has also thanked for that now and it is now the question of what will be in that building.
“I think this is a problematic development.”
While the old building is being emptied, the 18-year-old Jorie van der Laan takes a look on Wednesday. “I am very disappointed, because there is very little here,” she says. “First you could go quickly pass the store, but now it takes twenty minutes before you get back.”
Leo Bisschops of the Seniors network Brabant-Zeeland sees this happening in more and more villages. In Aarle-Rixtel the ATM has recently disappeared and in ‘s Gravenmoer the supermarket will also close. “I find that problematic,” says Bisschops. “If provisions diminish, you ensure that a village will agree. If there are no attractive cities around it, people will move away.”
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In the meantime, there are plenty of houses in Huijbergen to attract young people to the village. “But if there is nothing left, it is not attractive to stay here. So you will soon get an empty run,” says Alphons. Jorie is also afraid of that. “I don’t think people will soon live here, a supermarket is a first necessity,” she says.
“I fear that I will soon also lose my customers.”
Butcher Frans Wisse is the only one who has a physical store in Huijbergen. He fears his own existence. “People now have to leave the village for groceries and might as well take everything. So I fear that I will soon be lost my customers.”
That is why Frans now wants to offer a wider range. “I am now also selling cheese and I will see if I can also offer bread. That does not add much to me, but I mainly do for the village.” And a package point and a cash machine? Frans laughs. “Unfortunately I don’t have the space for a complete supermarket.”
The butcher hopes that in five years he will still be in his business in Huijbergen. “I’m going to worry about that,” he says. And although Jorie’s peers probably think differently, she also does not intend to leave the village. “I am fanatically Huijbergenaar, so I will continue to live here anyway.”