Plans to retain ASML run into problems, regional municipalities concerned

Photo credit: Studio040

Municipalities around Eindhoven are worried about the feasibility of ambitious plans to keep ASML in the region. The main problems lie in a shortage of suitable staff and a cut in the flow of money from the national government.

To make the implementation of the plans go faster and smoother, teams comprising officials from different government organisations are being set up. “It means things are not moving as fast as we would like”, Jan Willem Slijper, Alderman of the Municipality of Best, says.

Shortage of staff

To keep tech companies such as ASML in the Netherlands, the national government took the decision in March last year to release €1,73 billion. This will focus on accessibility, housing and education in the region. To work out the plans, specialised civil servants are needed with knowledge of, for instance, spatial planning, mobility or legal and financial advice.

And there is the challenge, because smaller municipalities in the region in particular are facing a shortage of specialist officials. “We are having quite some trouble finding people. Traffic specialists are hard to come by, as are good project managers and area developers. And there is a real need for that”, Slijper says.

It is not only Best that has concerns. For instance, an internal meeting report from April last year says: “There has been widespread concern among municipalities about the feasibility of the Beethoven-deal because of the implementation power of all its partners”.

Best’s councillor Slijper says: ‘We will get the big projects completed in the end. But in the area of mobility, such as cycle paths and the mobility hub, things are not going as fast as we want. We are running a delay of a year to a year and a half compared to our ambition”.

Staff

Staff shortages are not just about the municipalities themselves. To cope with population growth, new GP surgeries and schools are needed, for example. Several municipalities worry about the financing of these facilities and whether they will succeed in finding suitable staff, such as GPs or teachers.

So while the municipalities in the Brainport Region are getting even busier, they are faced with the fact that the national government will give much less money to all municipalities in the Netherlands from 2026 onwards. Almost all municipalities in the Netherlands expect major problems due to this cut. They fear, for example, that major cuts will have to be made to facilities such as museums, theatres, social support and maintenance of cycle paths or green areas. It is also expected that investments in new construction for e.g. new roads and school buildings will be put on hold.

Discount

It is difficult to absorb this cut. Earlier, Son en Breugel, Geldrop-Mierlo and Waalre expressed concern about this. “The possibilities for a small municipality like Waalre to compensate are limited. We cannot increase the property tax (ozb) and tourism tax indefinitely”, the Municipality of Waalre responded.

The municipalities are currently mapping out the consequences, of the decline in revenue on the one hand and extra workload due to more tasks, and what kind of measures to take in concrete terms. But clearly it is going to be difficult and several projects will have to be delayed.

Working smarter

To implement the Beethoven plans, Eindhoven Mayor Jeroen Dijsselbloem said, “we need to work much smarter. If every municipality does the parts for the construction of a bike path step by step, that fast bike path will never come about”, Dijsselbloem said.

The 21 municipalities work together in the Metropoolregio (metropolitan region) Eindhoven, which has its own office and staff. This organisation is setting up teams where people from the project organisation work together with officials from different municipalities, in order to implement the plans faster.

There is also help from The Hague, Dijsselbloem says. “We have monthly meetings with top officials from The Hague to see where we stand with all these projects. At this meeting, we monitor whether we are keeping up the pace and speak to each other if we are not”, Dijsselbloem said.

Source: Studio040

Translated by: Bob

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