Entrepreneurs at the Eindhoven business park De Kade are angry. They feel that the municipality is deaf to their opinions now that asylum seekers are moving into the residential units on Kanaaldijk-Zuid.
Last week, the municipality acknowledged that a hundred asylum seekers from Ter Apel are to be accommodated at Kanaaldijk-Zuid. The entrepreneurs in the neighborhood were taken by surprise. “There has been no consultation. We will only be informed afterwards, as if it has already been decided. That is now happening again, just like at the end of last year, when a homeless shelter was set up. We are simply not taken seriously”, responds Bjorn Serden of the ‘ondernemersvereniging De Kade’.
Lack of trust
There is a lack of trust as the confidence of entrepreneurs in the municipality has dwindled. After the previous absence of consultation on the accommodation of the homeless in the neighborhood, the city council even expressed regret. What’s more, the municipality does not keep its promises, according to the entrepreneurs. Serden: “The municipality had promised that the residential units would be removed when the winter shelter were closed in April. Now we hear that asylum seekers are coming. That was not the deal.”
Failure to respect the agreements is not the only thing that bothers entrepreneurs. There are also concerns about the arrival of the refugees and possible nuisance in the area. “We understand the seriousness and understand that people need to be provided for. But we are skeptical about this target group. Ter Apel is a registration center, and there has been a lot of nuisance in the area. We wonder how this can be prevented in Eindhoven.”
Nuisance
According to Serden, Springplank040 had a clear plan at the shelter for the homeless on how any nuisance could be contained. He wondered whether the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) could handle this task. “COA has no ties with Eindhoven and is now extremely busy. Who’s to tell me this is all going to be okay? I hope that the COA can arrange all this properly, together with the municipality and the police.”
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Yawar Abbas
