Only positive sounds were heard during the presentation of the Nuenen budget for 2025. It is in contrast to earlier reports that the Nuenen municipal council was concerned about the disappointing income from the government and therefore would have to make cuts.
But major cutbacks are not necessary and all (construction) plans can be implemented. Moreover, the residents of Nuenen will have ‘hardly’ more to pay next year, as emerged from the presentation.
There is currently a lot of construction and renovation going on in the Municipality of Nuenen. Meeting centre Het Klooster (the monastry community centre) is being renovated (costs: over €14,600,000), in Gerwen the renovation of D’n Heuvel (the hill) community centre is almost finished (costs: around €1,400,000) and De Hongerman sports hall in Nuenen will be renovated next year for more than €14,000,000. In addition, Sinti in Gerwen will receive a new caravan site for €9,800,000 and the accessibility of Nuenen will be further tackled for an amount of around €12,000,000.
Nuenen plans to borrow over €39,000,000 million euros for all these projects up to and including 2028. “We will pay the rest from our own resources”, Bertje van Stiphout, Alderman for Finance, not without pride, says. “Since I took office, we have started ‘smart saving’ and reserving and saving money. This has allowed us to build up a nice buffer. In addition, we do indeed still have to borrow a considerable amount, but as a municipality we comply with all the rules set by the province of Noord-Brabant”.
Balance
According to Van Stiphout, there are ‘economic challenges’, but – due to the good coordination of income and expenditure – no deficits are expected in 2025 and 2026. “We can say that the Municipality of Nuenen is currently financially healthy. Our policy is aimed at keeping our loan portfolio and our own capital in balance. And temporising – or ‘postponing’ – as the most important option for savings”.
The Alderman is referring to the proper planning of projects and investments and sometimes postponing them. “Sometimes we were lucky enough to have lower capital costs or benefitted from an interest advantage due to lower expenditure”. In addition, the municipality has applied the ‘new for old’ policy, whereby existing resources have been reallocated, optimised or released. “This avoids new costs”, Van Stiphout says.
This also means that the residents of Nuenen will hardly notice anything in their wallets. “Next year, taxes on home ownership (ozb, onroerende zaak belasting, real estate tax), sewage charges and the prices for a passport, for example, will only increase by 3.3 per cent”. According to Van Stiphout, this is inflation and not an increase in costs. “Our current financial position is strong enough to avoid major cutbacks in the short term. This allows us to continue doing what we have agreed. Without drastic measures”.
Eeneind
But what if there are setbacks? For example, if the arrival of the much-discussed distribution centre on Eeneind industrial estate in Nuenen fails? After all, there is quite a bit of resistance, especially from the neighbouring Municipality of Geldrop. However, there are agreements with third parties, who will come up with a claim for damages in such a case. According to Van Stiphout, there is still little to worry about in that case. “Then we still have thirty hectares of valuable land, with which we can do other things”, the elated Alderman sounds.
New town hall
And then there are plans to build a completely new town hall on the site of the current building on Jan van Schijnveltlaan. This involves a cost item of around €16,5,000,000. The money for this also largely has to be borrowed. According to the board, this fits into the budget for 2025, but the final say is of course up to the municipal council.
Source: Studio040Â
Translated by: Bob
