Organisation - August 26, 2010
Defence blocks stopgap student housing
Wageningen entrepreneur Jaap Veenendaal had organized for two barracks on army premises in Ede to be used as stopgap housing for two hundred Wageningen students. But on 9 August he got a telephone call from The Hague informing him the deal was off.
Up till 1 January, however, the Ministry of Defence remains in charge of management. Its exit strategy states that as from 1 September no overnight occupancy is permitted on the premises of the barracks, the ministry told Jaap Veenendaal, director of hotel Hof van Gelderland.
'You're walking into bureaucratic brick walls', he complains. He has, however, managed to buy beds and cupboards from the ministry for emergency housing for foreign students in Wageningen.