"What does this mean?", asks the resident at the information evening of the Ministry of Defence. "That this house has to disappear." (2024)

Protest in Weerselo against the possible establishment of a defense ammunition complex, for which houses and farms must make way. Photo Wouter de Wilde

If you were to fly a drone over Robert Maat’s (53) house in the northeast of Twente, you would see a patchwork of different shades of green and brown. Green meadows, brown farmland, gray roads that frame the patches, dark green woolly tufts of forest. And scattered across the blanket you see the occasional house or farm. In the north of the blanket lies the hamlet of Agelo, in the southwest the village of Weerselo, and in the southeast the church village of Rossum. The space that he experiences is a blessing, Maat thinks. He talks about the evening walks he takes on the sandy path behind his house, and shoots up like a deer hopping through the greenery behind his house. “Look! Where else do you have this?”, he sighs.

It is the space that makes the location suitable for a case that Maat is not at all interested in. He points to a row of trees a few hundred meters away. Defense may want to build a large-scale ammunition complex there. Defense has six possible locations in mind, in addition to the municipality of Dinkelland, where Maat lives.

At the end of last year, Maat heard from an observant neighbour who read the newspaper that the Ministry of Defence was looking for space for an ammunition complex and that it might be in their neighbourhood. At the beginning of June, the Ministry of Defence organised an information evening in Zwolle. “Maybe I went there a bit naively,” says Maat. “The depot might be in our back garden. What will it look like? Will it bother me? Will there be a lot of traffic movements?” After a general presentation, there was an ‘information market’ with maps. On one of the maps, Maat saw his house in ‘safety area A’. He asked a defence employee what that meant: “That means that this house has to disappear,” he heard. “I thought: pardon?”, says Maat. “That was a shock.” Then, in a session that specifically focused on his neighbourhood, Maat was given an explanation about ‘safety zones’ around an ammunition depot. In zones A and B, within a radius of seven hundred metres around the ammunition complex, all houses have to disappear. There are thirty of them in the entire municipality of Dinkelland.

Geopolitics

Defence wants to renovate barracks and depots and is looking for more space throughout the Netherlands for exercises and storage of equipment. “The geopolitical situation is changing and the world is becoming less safe,” says Defence spokesperson Captain Tom van Hout. For “credible deterrence” the government believes a “larger, better equipped and well-trained armed forces” is needed. In order to map out the required space, Defence started the National Space for Defence programme in July last year. Research into a location for a new ammunition complex is part of this. The ammunition complex requires a surface area of ​​70 hectares, may not fall within a Natura 2000 area, and may not be intersected by roads or lie under a low-flying area.

In addition to the location in the municipality of Dinkelland, where Maat’s house is located, the Ministry of Defence is investigating six other areas in three provinces. In Overijssel, it concerns Dalfsen. In Gelderland, it concerns Hummelo, Zevenaar and Zoelen, the latter involving two smaller complexes instead of one large one. In Flevoland, the Ministry of Defence is investigating locations near Dronten and Biddinghuizen.

Robert Maat built his own house and barn. If the ammunition depot comes here, he will have to leave it all behind. – Wouter de Wilde – 01-08-2024

And almost everywhere the research is causing unrest. Robert Maat and his neighbours started a campaign to attract attention. They are not alone. In Hummelo, where more than a hundred houses are supposed to disappear, concerned residents started a petition. Several municipal authorities objected – although it is not they, but the cabinet that has the decision-making power. The board in the municipality of Bronckhorst (which includes Hummelo) finds the arrival of a depot “unacceptable”. In Dalfsen, the municipal authority was not at all enthusiastic and concluded that a depot is “not possible” because the municipality itself has “plans and ambitions” in the area. And in Zoelen, where 66 houses are supposed to be demolished, concerned residents set up an action group. According to residents, houses within the safety zones have lost value or even become “unsellable”.

Staphorst wants to

At the end of July, Robert Maat’s neighborhood started an online petition and parked a trailer with a loading platform next to the provincial road, covered with a large banner with the text: “Defense is taking advantage of us, our community is being blown up.” Passers-by can’t ignore banners at other places along the road either. “We live in a fantastic neighborhood, are we now just being sent away by Defense?” And: “I said so hard: no bomb!”

Surprisingly, there is one municipality that does like a large-scale ammunition complex – but it is not one of the seven intended locations. The municipality of Staphorst has contacted the Ministry of Defence itself. “Staphorst would like to do something for the national interest,” says a spokesperson for the municipality. “There is already an ammunition storage facility in our municipality, so residents are familiar with it. We suspect that there is room for expansion, because the complex is located near a forest, which is a good fit for a storage facility that almost no one is allowed to go near.” Staphorst did not meet “all the criteria,” says Van Hout. “But the Ministry of Defence is in talks with Staphorst and is looking at what options there are within this municipality.”

Home-bound Tukker

Dairy farmer Rudy Hampsink (58) lives a kilometre away from Robert Maat. His house is also in safety zone A. Hampsink’s seventy cows are ruminating in the barn. They lick the reporter’s clothes curiously, but they are not scared. “We walk around the barn a lot, they are used to people,” Hampsink grumbles. “You can recognise the farmer by the behaviour of the cows.” Daughter Silke Hampsink (19) shakes some feed pellets through the hay. If he has to leave here, says Hampsink, his company has to go too. “I’m not sure yet whether I want to take over the company,” says Silke, who is studying agriculture. “But if we have to leave, that choice has been made. You don’t just start a new company somewhere.” The family doesn’t want to leave at all. “I’m a homebody from Twente,” says Rudy Hampsink.

The dairy farm of the Hampsink family, which would also have to go. Photo Wouter de Wilde

The municipality of Dinkelland calculated that twelve agricultural companies would have to disappear if an ammunition depot were to arrive. “The majority of these companies are already provided with business succession,” the municipality wrote in the opinion it sent to the Ministry of Defence. That is not its only objection. The municipality is not happy about the communication with “residents, stakeholders and the municipality itself.” It decided to inform the residents about the information evening itself, because the Ministry of Defence failed to do so.

“If houses within seven hundred meters of the area have to disappear, I think you can at least invite those people yourself,” says Robert Maat. “The communication is really bad.” Residents in and around the possible ammunition depot locations already see a future in which they have to move, or lose a large part of their neighbors.

‘Research phase’

Defense, on the other hand, sees this stage as a “research phase,” says Van Hout. According to him, Defense has deliberately chosen to communicate about its plans at an early stage. Van Hout understands that this causes unrest. “We see that unrest more broadly in the country. The Netherlands is small and there is an enormous task. It is logical that people feel something about it.”

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Defense does not communicate with individual residents for practical reasons, says Van Hout. “We consider provinces a logical discussion partner and we are in discussions with municipalities.” All the expansion plans of Defense are spread across more than ninety municipalities. “It is therefore not feasible to write to every individual resident, and there is a big chance that you will accidentally skip direct stakeholders,” says Van Hout. Defense published information in local weekly newspapers and held information sessions, he adds. He refers to an e-mail address where residents can go with questions.

“The weighting of factors that play a role in the final decision is unclear to me,” says Rudy Hampsink. For example, does the number of houses to be demolished play a role? The PlanMER, a research report that examines the effects on the physical living environment at each of the possible locations, will be sent to the cabinet in early 2025. “The number of houses to be demolished per location, as well as the social support and the research results, is also information that is presented to the cabinet,” says Van Hout.

Robert Maat thinks that the Ministry of Defence assumes that there is currently a lot of support for defence. “Take the war in Ukraine, because of that it suddenly doesn’t seem so far away anymore,” he says. But a large-scale complex simply doesn’t fit in a country like the Netherlands where there is a fight for space, he thinks. “Why not smaller depots?” Smaller depots have the same safety zones, says Van Hout.

The question is what the new cabinet will ultimately decide. The actions in Dinkelland attracted the attention of members of parliament from BBB and NSC, says Robert Maat. This month, residents will also be talking to the Ministry of Defence. Rudy Hampsink thinks the actions are more than logical. “If the depot comes here, you don’t want to blame yourself for not having done enough to prevent it.”

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