It all started in July this year: the emergency shelter for asylum seekers in Uden. The municipality of Maashorst decided that there could be an emergency shelter for three hundred asylum seekers for a maximum of three years. Then there was an aftermath with angry local residents, lawsuits between the municipality and local residents, a penalty and buses with asylum seekers who ‘illegally’ moved into an empty Van der Valk hotel in Uden. The judge made his ruling on Friday.
It is acting mayor Rianne Donders who in July criticized the decision to provide emergency shelter for a maximum of three hundred asylum seekers for three years. In this way, the overcrowded shelter in Ter Apel should be relieved.
The municipality uses the offer of a Van der Valk hotel. The hotel will not receive any other guests for three years. “An unexpected opportunity,” Donders said at the time. The shelter is close to the Bernhoven hospital in Uden. The hotel will receive several million euros for the shelter.
Boos
During a committee meeting in September, acting mayor Donders reported that the shelter will not open before November. The date in October is not feasible for the COA (Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers). The reception of asylum seekers caused a lot of unrest in Uden and the public gallery made this known with boos.
At the beginning of December, a group of residents of the hotel filed a lawsuit against the municipality of Maashorst because the municipality’s consultation procedure was allegedly careless.
Permit
They got the court in Den Bosch on their side. He decided last Monday that the consultation procedure was indeed careless, as had previously been determined by a judge. However, the court did find that asylum reception could be possible once the permit had been arranged.
The municipality of Maashorst will make a decision on Tuesday to grant the permit, which makes emergency shelter for asylum seekers in the hotel possible.
A day later, the judge makes another decision: the emergency shelter in the Van der Valk hotel in Uden cannot yet open. The municipality’s permit has been suspended for two days. Local residents still want to object to the permit.
Buses of asylum seekers
This meant that no asylum seekers and status holders were allowed to be accommodated in the hotel until Friday. At that time, the buses with asylum seekers were already on their way from Ter Apel to Uden. Later on Wednesday, 88 asylum seekers moved into the hotel.
The lawyer for the local residents then demanded a penalty of 250,000 euros from the municipality on Thursday, because the asylum seekers are staying in the hotel illegally. The municipality does not yet require the asylum seekers to leave the hotel.
On Friday, the judge will decide that two hundred asylum seekers can be accommodated in the hotel for the time being. Not three hundred. According to the judge, this should be a maximum of two hundred. In addition, more local residents will be allowed to participate in the discussion about the shelter in the future.
This is what the shelter in the Van der Valk hotel in Uden looks like from the inside.