The much-discussed report listing the pros and cons of the asylum center in Ter Apel will not be ready until next summer.
This is what Mayor Jaap Velema of Westerwolde says.
Initially, it was expected that the cost/benefit analysis of the country’s best-known reception location would be ready at the beginning of 2024. “But it took time to choose a good investigation agency and that agency needs time to prepare a careful, thorough report,” said Velema. “Quality takes time.”
Order from the municipal council
At the end of 2022, the Westerwolde municipal council instructed the mayor and aldermen to list the pros and cons of the asylum center. The council members often talk about the reception location and in particular about the nuisance caused by a group of asylum seekers.
It is often also about the economic benefits that the asylum center provides, such as employment. Benefits that weigh heavily on politicians. But they don’t know exactly how great those benefits are. Just as they do not know how great the adverse effects are. The report must make this clear and can play a crucial role when the council discusses the question: do we want to continue with the asylum center or not?
COA, entrepreneurs and residents
Research agency Cebeon draws up the report. “We took that into account. It has experience with these types of studies.” Part of the research involves conversations with people who are directly and indirectly involved with the shelter, people from COA, entrepreneurs and residents in Ter Apel. “But also people from the Penitentiary Institution,” said the mayor. The asylum center and the prison were built in the village shortly after each other at the end of the last century and are therefore more or less linked.
Ultimately, it should become clear how many jobs, directly and indirectly, the presence of the reception location creates and what other economic benefits are associated with it. But it must also provide answers to the question of what the negative consequences are, for example for tourism, and what damage to the image all negative publicity surrounding the asylum center entails.
Extra strict department
According to Velema, the nuisance caused by a group of asylum seekers is still an issue. The assumption is that the inconvenience will be reduced if an extra strict department for underprivileged refugees within the asylum center is fully operational: the Process Availability Location (PBL). But according to Velema, the latter is not yet the case.