“You’ll just have to lie under it”, sighs Jean Nijssen, chairman of the Ulvenhout Village Council. Because six months after the municipality of Breda placed an unannounced air-raid alarm next to the childcare, the thing still sounds from exactly the same place every first Monday of the month at twelve o’clock. “We would like to move it, but haven’t found a good place yet.”
Nobody wants such a thing near their house. A few hundred meters away, at De Rosmolen primary school, seemed like a good alternative. The school agreed, but the parents’ council thought otherwise. So Monday afternoon the air raid siren was again screaming loudly above the babies and toddlers of daycare center Boeffies & (B)Engeltjes.
Wendy van Suylekom of childcare is very disappointed that the pole is still there. In April, she was shocked by an accident when the air raid siren was placed unannounced right next to the building. “If that thing goes off, we’ll also have about thirty children inside who imitate an air raid siren. It’s terrible.”
After her cry for help via Omroep Brabant, she has heard nothing more from the municipality. “Nothing, nope, nada,” says Wendy. The village council of Ulvenhout did talk to the municipality of Breda, where the officials admitted that ‘mistakes were made in communication about the arrival of the air raid siren’.
The village council and municipality are now looking for another place together. “I expect that the pole will still be here until the end of this year,” Nijssen explains. This week the village council is calling via the website OurUlvenhout residents to think about an alternative location. “We want to do it carefully. But there will certainly be a better place for this pole,” says Nijssen hopefully.
And cutting the wires from this pole is not an option, according to the village council chairman: “It is there for a reason. There are about 4000 in the Netherlands and Ulvenhout must also be warned if something is wrong.”