Groningen offers expert help to Lauwersoog seal centre

Groningen provincial executive Susan Top (non-party) said in an urgent debate that the province is willing to help the WEC draw up a plan for its future. She did not rule out a cash injection, "but there has to be time for it", she said, referring to the bankruptcy-filing deadline the centre's management has set itself.

Top said it is now up to the WEC's management to decide on that deadline. "If the current situation leads to more time, that allows more scenarios to be examined," she said. The province wants to use the time first to draw up an action plan with the WEC, with outside expertise.

If the plan shows a healthy future is in sight, the province will reassess whether to support the centre financially. Earlier, the province and the municipality were willing to put €1.5m on the table. "But always with the idea that we would not get the same request for support a year later," Top said.

The province still believes in the centre, which combines seal care with education and scientific research. "We don't want to give up that ambition. It has potential," Top said. "But apparently something different has to happen from what is happening now."

Three WEC employees spoke at the debate and asked that the centre not be abandoned. The management did not attend, which dismayed the PVV.

Hester de Vries, the WEC's marketing and communications manager, acknowledged that tickets, at €18.95 for adults and €16.95 for children up to 12, are too expensive. "But at the moment we cannot lower that price. Otherwise we would have been gone long ago," she said. She called the centre a national icon that should be cherished and said it moved last year: "This place still has to be discovered."