“This expansion plan from Defense will be received with mixed feelings in Laaghalerveen. Residents of the area around the current training ground had taken a strong account of the fact that a large part of them should move. For the most of them, the news will be a relief, after more than a year of uncertainty.
This does not apply to the owners of the two farms who have to leave. They lose their entire company in one fell swoop and it is questionable what compensation they will receive from Defense for that.
And that is independent of the enormous emotional impact that the news will have on the families, whose life is largely on the farms.
Many other farmers will also have to return land and it will make a difference on a case -by -case basis how great the impact thereof will be on their company. It will be a difficult job to compensate the farmers with other arable land.
Many residents in the area hoped that the Ministry of Defense would opt for Witterveld as an expansion for their training grounds. They hoped that no one would have to be expropriated. The chance of this was small, because not everything that Defense wants to practice is allowed in the nature reserve. “