It is still the same as three years ago. Perhaps a little more impoverished and affected by nature. However, that will soon change, if it is up to project developer Jaap ten Hoor. Former conference center De Klencke in Oosterhesselen is ready for demolition, after which a new neighborhood will arise: Het Klenckerveld.
The five-hectare complex on the edge of the village has been vacant since October 2012. In 2015 it was in the picture as a reception location for asylum seekers, but due to opposition from villagers, this ultimately fell through. Three years ago, Marcel Rensink of Local Interest expressed the hope in Prohibited Access that something would happen soon: “Now there will only be rabble.” The doors are missing, the walls are covered with graffiti and an old mattress is scattered here and there.
At first, bats were the reason for the delay in demolition. Now it’s trees: “Before we want to do anything on the site, we have to make an inventory of all the trees,” explains project developer Ten Hoor. “I thought it would take a month, but it certainly took a year. You have to handle it very carefully. What kind of animals live there? You want to preserve nature as much as possible. So that took a long time.”
Ten Hoor walks between the demolition material through the rain-soaked corridors of the former complex. Through the doorways he sees empty rooms, all daubed with colorful graffiti. “This is all going down the drain,” he says. “This is too neglected. If we wanted to keep this complex, we should have started ten years ago. Now the state is too bad for that.”