“I am completely destroyed in this way, because I don’t sleep anymore.” Mark Maurits (56) lets his emotions run free when he tells his story. Since the announcement that there should be a shelter for asylum seekers right next to their house, his life and that of his wife Femke (52) is completely upside down: “They really have no idea what they do to us and people who should come here.”
A year ago, the letter from the municipality fell on the bus with Mark and Femke. The COA (Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers) wants to make reception places for three hundred asylum seekers next to them. In the first instance it is a temporary daycare for four years. Mark: “For us, the news came as a thunderbolt in a clear sky. At ten meters from our kitchen? At that moment the ground drops under your feet.”
For more than twenty years the couple have been living on the Bergsebaan in the outskirts of Heerle. They built their own ‘paradise’ around their bungalow with plenty of room for their horses, sheep and dogs. “We have invested strongly in this place, because we are people who love freedom,” emphasizes Femke. Yet the living enjoyment of the couple has been coming under more and more pressure lately.
“Fatbikes and racing bikes ride the buttocks of your pants here.”
“The nuisance of sound, smell and dust have increased here,” explains Mark. The nuisance comes from waste processing company Renewi that was expanded four years ago. The company is a stone’s throw from the house of the Maurits family. The same applies to the F58 fast bike route that runs past their front door. “Fatbikes and racing bikes ride the buttocks of your pants here. There is no footpath and that is why I hold my heart when children from the AZC start walking on it, dangerous,” says Femke.
Division
During the recent committee meeting, politics in Roosendaal turned out to be divided on the issue. In the majority, this is not about the usefulness and necessity of a refugee shelter, but about doubts about the suitability of the intended place.
Mayor Mark Buijs would rather have seen a small -scale daycare, but that is not a feasible alternative for the COA. Over the possibility of keeping the reception center open for more than four years, Buijs is clear: “As far as the college is concerned, that option must be removed from the contract with the COA.”
According to alderman Koenraad, it is true that for the college only the location in Heerle is in the picture for an AZC. “An entrepreneur has reported to the municipality who wants to make his land available for this. When this application arrived, we took it into account as we would do this in other cases. That makes perfect sense.”
The protest in Heerle has been going without disturbances so far. Nevertheless, the ‘Leave alone’ working group makes “perhaps completely unnecessary”, in its own words, a call to “respect the rules” during the upcoming council meeting. The working group says it will enter into a dialogue in a ‘constructive and democratic way and to find the connection, even with proponents of an AZC’.
The city council will take a final decision on 2 April. After that, liveability aspects such as odor and noise pollution still have to be tested for the application for the environmental permit.
Just before the municipality announced the plan for the asylum seekers center (AZC), Mark and Femke were about to take a new step once more. “We had a beautiful farm in mind, but thank goodness it was sold just in front of us. Otherwise we would have had a big problem,” says Femke. “We are still looking for something else. But that is, unless we are properly compensated, now completely hopeless. We can’t go anywhere. Our future is on the street,” adds Mark while he fights against his tears.
“Give these people a safe and humane accommodation with possibilities to integrate.”
It is especially the feeling of powerlessness that the two breaks up. Mark: “We are not at all included in decision -making. We are being pushed into a position in a position in which we do not want to be at all. Because we are not racist or against the reception of refugees, on the contrary even. Give these people a safe and humane accommodation with possibilities to integrate. That is not possible in ‘the middle of nowhere“On a dangerous road and next to a waste processor?”
The COA also called the location on the Bergsebaan ‘doubtful’. The fact that the municipality still sticks to this location, says Mark and Femke ‘incomprehensible’. “I dare to doubt whether serious research has been done into better locations in the municipality of Roosendaal. It seems that games are being played where the outcome was already established in advance. Moreover, everyone understands that the COA does not allow the COA to be installed on the site for just four years, because that is unprofitable,” said Mark.
“I think this is the worst conceivable location within the municipality of Roosendaal.”
Mark Maurits: “I hope that municipal councilors look closely at themselves in the mirror before they make the decision. I think this is the worst conceivable location for everyone within the municipality of Roosendaal.”