The Expo Hall in Assen is empty. All asylum seekers who were still received there have been given a place elsewhere in the country, says COA spokesperson Alet Bouwmeester. “The last people left today.”
The event hall is not yet completely empty. “From next week we will start working on delivering the hall empty and tidy,” Bouwmeester said.
The intention was actually for the event hall to be empty on January 1. The move was postponed because water damage occurred at a new location in The Hague. The shelter in the Expo Hall was therefore extended until February 1.
The events hall at the TT Circuit has been in use as emergency shelter for up to 500 people since November 2021. The shelter was put into use to relieve the pressure on Ter Apel. Since 2023, the Expo Hall has been used as a ‘waiting room’ for the registration center in that location. To prevent people from having to sleep outside, refugees who had not yet completed their registration process were brought to Assen.
The initial intention was that the hall would be used as a shelter for a number of months, but this was extended over the years.
In 2025, COA started working on the conditions in the Expo Hall. The Council for Refugees and the Justice and Security Inspectorate, among others, criticized the living conditions of the refugees in the event hall. It was noisy, there was too little privacy and there were concerns about the food. In addition, refugees would spend longer in emergency shelter than agreed. Instead of the agreed five days, asylum seekers sometimes stayed in the hall under austere conditions for weeks or months.
A GGD doctor called in an urgent letter to no longer place children in the building. According to him, several young children in the building had lost weight to the point of being underweight. They would also often be woken up at night by noise in the hall and the sanitary facilities would be very dirty. The doctor was also concerned about the children’s psychological health. “They don’t feel safe, they don’t go to school and they can’t play sports,” he wrote.
To improve conditions in the hall, COA converted the rooms. There was also a running buffet instead of warm-up meals. A classroom was built for children and more opportunities to play.
Refugee work was pleased with the efforts of COA, but remained critical of the reception location. “COA is rowing with resources that they do not have,” said Mirjam Laan of the Council for Refugees. “They are doing their best, but the conditions in the Expo are inhumane.”
The hall will not remain empty if it is up to the owner, the Lenferink Group from Zwolle. They want to build a daytime attraction in the hall with attention to mobility, technology and motor sports. That concept is called ‘World of Mobility’.
