Moerdijk village could stay after all, cabinet says
State secretary Jo-Annes de Bat says keeping the village of Moerdijk is "feasible". That would spare its roughly 1,100 residents the removal the municipality announced last year.
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Illustrative photo: ReneH12 / Pixabay Content LicenseThe cabinet wants the village of Moerdijk in North Brabant to stay. State secretary Jo-Annes de Bat (Climate, CDA) wrote this on Tuesday in a letter to the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of parliament. He concludes that the scenario in which the village is preserved is "feasible". Residents are cautious. The residents' group Dorpstafel Moerdijk says "we don't have any guarantees yet", and Bewonerscollectief Moerdijk says that on paper they are "very nice words", but nothing changes for residents yet.
The village has about 1,100 inhabitants. In November last year the municipality of Moerdijk announced that the village would have to disappear to make room for the expansion of the port and industrial area.
De Bat has yet to make a final choice. First it must become clear, among other things, how the area can remain liveable and what the prospects are for industry around Moerdijk.
The letter contains new estimates of the space that developments around the village would take up. De Bat puts the total still needed at about 200 hectares.
The central government will not look for extra space near Moerdijk for large-scale development of new circular industrial chains, De Bat writes. That must go to other areas of the Netherlands reserved for it. The cabinet is also not aiming for a large expansion of the port of Moerdijk.
Residents of the village of Moerdijk and the surrounding region have rightly long asked for clarity.Jo-Annes de Bat, state secretary, in his letter to parliament
Source: Tweede Kamer
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