For eight years, Marjolein de Graaff and her husband Stan Maessen have been living with the threat of a large industrial estate – Wijkevoort – coming near them. And they have been fighting this for eight years. Maessen: “Sometimes I’m driving somewhere and I see an industrial estate bordering farms. Then I think: that can’t be the intention here, can it?
The years of struggle leave their mark on De Graaff. “After such a council meeting I didn’t sleep. It kept repeating in my head,” she explains. “It’s in my head every day. All it takes is something in the news about nitrogen and I’m working on it again. A message about tightness in the labor market? Or about labor migration? I immediately link it to Wijkevoort.”
“You’re cheating on all sides.”
Maessen: “There have been times when it got me to this point. That I was extremely angry and thought: you are cheating on all sides. I’m left-wing, aren’t I? But my confidence in the government had shrunk so much a few years ago that the voting guide showed Baudet.”
In 2015, De Graaff and Maessen bought their farm in the countryside on the southwest side of Tilburg. There had been plans for an industrial park in their neighborhood since 1998. “But we didn’t know that,” says Maessen. De Graaff: “It happened under the radar. We received a letter from residents in 2017.” Maessen: “Then we thought: ‘huh?!’ No one told us anything about that.”
De Graaff: “In fact, when we bought this house, we went to the municipality and asked what the plans were for this area. Then nothing was said about Wijkevoort.”
The neighborhood immediately protested and filed a massive objection, including Maessen and De Graaff. They organized themselves, made themselves heard at residents’ evenings and council meetings, and wrote letters to the municipality. But it was all to no avail. In 2021, the Tilburg municipal council gave the green light for the construction of the business park.
READ ALSO: The Council has approved the controversial Wijkevoort industrial estate in Tilburg
Local residents went to the Council of State. According to De Graaff, he should have made a ruling within six months. But the file is still there. “At the bottom of the pile,” she estimates: “Housing and nitrogen are given priority.” And so after eight years there is still uncertainty.
“I can’t imagine that the municipality can still get this through.”
Yet De Graaff is now optimistic: “I cannot imagine that the municipality can still get this through. I am convinced that there is a very good chance that the plan for Wijkevoort will be annulled by the Council of State. The net is closing.” Maessen: “And it’s not just about nitrogen. Water and energy may become even bigger stumbling blocks.”
But Maessen is not as positive as his wife: “I want to protect myself a little. I try to be realistic. It’s David against Goliath after all. I think that the municipality of Tilburg has invested so much in this industrial estate that it will pull out all the stops to make it happen.”
Omroep Brabant has also asked the municipality of Tilburg for an interview about Wijkevoort with responsible councilor Bas van der Pol. But he doesn’t want to comment at this time.
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