1/4 Busy at the information meeting about hotel migrant workers in Wernhout. (photo: Raoul Cartens)
The plans to turn the former party palace Jaiselings Royal Palace in Wernhout into a hotel for 400 migrant workers are keeping people busy. This became apparent on Tuesday evening during an information meeting attended by more than 200 people from the area. They are afraid of nuisance. After the project developer explained the plans, the tone quickly became sharp. “Stop these plans, because there is zero support for this. Better build houses here for our own residents,” was the sound, followed by applause.
The evening started with many substantive questions to Ted van den Besselaar from initiator Sabes project development and employment agency E&A. For example, about measures to prevent nuisance to the environment.
“There are too many.”
But the tone changes when a few residents of the nearby Wernhoutsburg housing park, the former Patersven holiday park, have their say. “I think this plan has been arranged in detail with the municipality for a long time. And what if the Poles return home? Will asylum seekers come here? Or an addiction clinic?”
The fact that migrant workers come to live here, but work in Breda, Etten-Leur and Roosendaal, also causes grumbling. “So we have the burdens, but not the benefits,” it sounds. “There are already 400 Poles living on Patersven. There are too many,” says another.
Others would prefer to see all migrant workers who now live throughout the municipality of Zundert brought together in the former party complex near Wernhout. “This frees up all those other houses for our own residents.” Others go even further: “Just build houses here for your own residents.”
“The Council of State will ultimately have to assess that!”
The building permit for the migrant hotel, a stone’s throw from the Belgian border, has yet to be applied for. According to Van den Besselaar, the conversion into a hotel for 400 migrant workers fits within the zoning plan, which would even allow him to build hotel accommodation for 1,000 guests.
The municipality of Zundert is keeping quiet about this for the time being. But a somewhat noisy resident of the housing park across the street already knows: “The Council of State will ultimately have to assess that.” In other words: he wants to challenge the permit to the highest level in court.
At the end of the evening, those present are asked to participate in a sounding board group, in which an attempt is made to coordinate the plans for the complex and the concerns of the surrounding area. There is little response. Also because the people who claimed the stage at the beginning of the evening have already left.
Van den Besselaar hopes that the migrant hotel can open in mid-2026: “But only after all procedures have been completed properly.”
The information meeting goes out like a candle. While the room empties, some local residents have a chat with the project developer and the employment agency. Remarkably, it is the same attendees who asked substantive questions at the beginning of the evening or who were silent and listened to the answers.
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