Stichting Wielercentrum Assen (SWA) tries again at the city council, to get that coveted roof on the cycling track on Stadsbroek. And that while she recently ran a blue. Again there is a letter with an urgent cry for help: please give 8 tons of subsidy from the municipal treasury for a roof of 1.5 million euros.
SWA chairman Ger Heeringa explicitly points out politics in the letter to agreements from the past, ‘to complete the cycling center’. And also at the administrative agreement of the lecture parties from 2022, to try to realize a roof above at a reasonable price. “You can no longer go for the SWA board and the facts. We have made legally watertight agreements. There is no word of Spanish. If that does not happen, then there may be legal steps. We will certainly investigate them,” it sounds.
It is the umpteenth plea on the city council. Three times is a ship’s law has long been a passed station. Ten times is closer. De SWA wants support to a roofing plan to the left or right. She had that made a construction company for a reasonable price, as a rescue for the wooden compartment track from 2015, because otherwise it simply rotten away due to the many wetness. “I am not satisfied with ‘no’, because this just has to continue,” says a combative Heeringa.
The 76-year-old champion of the roof does not want to speak of ‘one last desperation attempt’. “Nothing despair, this is a very well -founded attempt. The political groups gain insight into the costs. We point them to agreements from the past, when the Kombaan was built without a roof, but would follow the second phase. And on the administrative agreement of this college. I think the municipal council should ensure that they are being fulfilled.”
This spring, the SWA suddenly came up with a much cheaper building plan, after a half -open roof of 3.5 million euros, in combination with a sports campus, was fired by politics last year. The alternative is a completely closed roof with side walls.
The construction price was 1.4 million, according to a quotation from September 2024, and 7 tons had to come from the municipal treasury. But Heeringa has not been given hands on each other in recent months, despite a strong support from the Drentse former cyclist and NOS sports reporter Herbert Dijkstra.
The cost price has since been adjusted upwards, because it is already more than half a year later. And the posts that wear the roof are also placed further off the track. “For safety reasons,” says Heeringa. “So the construction price is now almost 1.5 million.” Assen would then have to match 8 tons.
The cycling center itself has saved 300,000 euros, the province of Drenthe has to match 2 tons and a government grant of 2 tons of the Pot Sport and Moving, so-called Spuk money is counted.
Despite the price increase, Heeringa remains full of conviction that the roof plan is feasible and affordable. “If the municipality does not do this, they are crazy. Without a roof you will structurally lose more maintenance costs on the track until it has expired. If the track ends, you will lose 2.15 million.”
Heeringa keeps hope. “I have given fractions more insight into the building plan, how the costs work, and in the management agreement that was concluded there at the opening ten years ago. I hope to have opened a door with a few decisive parties.”
According to Heeringa, it remains ‘extremely exciting’ how this case will develop. “But I hope to get clarity before the summer. This has been going on far too long.” If the SWA catches again with this penetrating call with the Asser politics, the book is not closed, says the militant chairman. “We fight on, then perhaps via a different road, because that roof is coming.”