Many of the approximately one hundred and twenty campers, mainly from Amsterdam, have been standing with their caravan on the piece of dune land between the former tram track, Nieuw Unicum care center, Kennemerweg and Zandvoortselaan for decades. Because of their pressurized leisure activities, they feel forced to fight hard to maintain their ‘old-fashioned’ way of camping.
Right
Last year they were able to avert a forced departure in court: the developer operating under the then name Dutchen Group had to withdraw its plans to build two hundred and sixty luxury chalets on the camping site.
The project developer may have changed its name to ‘Sandevoerde Ontwikkeling’ in the meantime, but the plans to transform the camping site into a ‘contemporary’ park, including an impressive recreational lake, remain unchanged.
‘Cromatization’
The uncontrolled growth of holiday homes that Sandevoerde campsite is protesting against is called ‘roompottization’. The four largest holiday chains, Roompot, EuroParcs, Centerparcs and Landal GreenParks, are building large-scale holiday homes on old camping pitches that are rented out as investment properties.
Sandevoerde is one of the last areas with only mobile homes. This method of recreation is much less lucrative for the owners of the land, partly because the bungalows are inhabited all year round and Sandevoerde is only open during the summer season. Camping guests can park their caravans again on April 1. But for how long?
The campers want to put an end to that uncertainty. In addition to sharpening the legal knives, they are trying to do this by protesting tonight prior to a committee meeting about the new tourist vision of Zandvoort. They also want to ask for a more active role from council members later during the meeting.
‘Alderman operates autonomously’
Geert Sijtzema, on behalf of the Sandevoerde Association, which represents the interests of the campers: “I think there will be about sixty or seventy of us present. The aim is to make it clear to the council members what is going on, so that they can inform the councilor (Martijn Hendriks, ed.) seriously. I have the impression that not everyone is equally informed and the councilor operates autonomously. The construction permit will soon be granted and the entire process will be irreversible, while all kinds of things have happened that were not good.”