Defense expansion plans encounter many objections: competition for scarce land

Defense needs more space, literally. In the coming years, dozens of military locations should be added across the country, such as barracks, ammunition depots and airports. The ministry has designated preferred locations, but land is scarce and not everywhere they are waiting for low-flying helicopters and training locations with explosives.

Last December, the Ministry of Defense presented the National Space Program for Defense. That program states that extra space is needed at at least 31 locations, for example for fighter airfields in Brabant and a large number of places where helicopters are allowed to fly low.

According to Elanor Boekholt-O’Sullivan, lieutenant general of the Air Force, expansion is essential. “The space we have requested is the minimum space we need. If we now become part of a conflict, our units are potentially insufficiently trained to do what they need to do. That seems quite essential to me.”

Politics in The Hague supports additional investments in Defense, but provinces, municipalities, nature organizations and residents’ groups object to the plans. In total, more than 2,200 so-called views have been submitted, in other words: objections to the preferred locations. Almost half of those objections come from Brabant and concern the extra space for fighter planes. More than 200 views have also been submitted in Flevoland, Friesland and Groningen.

Nature and environmental organizations are concerned about, among other things, the additional places that should be created where helicopters are allowed to fly low. Yvonne de Hilster, nature manager in Flevoland, says that these plans would spell disaster for the birds in the area. “The Schokland nature reserve, on the Ketelmeer, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are plans for low flying, while it is also a bird area with many meadow birds. We simply cannot reconcile that.” De Hilster is afraid that nature will be the first to suffer if the plans are implemented.

Defense is considering building a mega barracks in Zeewolde. To the sadness of farmer Carolien den Brok:

Farmer Caroline fears the Defense plans: ‘We are very stuck’

The municipality of Dronten in Flevoland in particular is a popular place for proposed military locations. This concerns not only locations for those low-flying helicopters, including the aforementioned Ketelmeer, but also a barracks in the south of the municipality. Plus an ammunition storage and a training area with explosives.

Mayor Jean Paul Gebben (VVD) says he does not want to stop the plans in advance, but he does question them. “The whole of the Netherlands always thinks that there is a lot of space here, but it is also scarce here. I see the needs of society, also nationally, but you have to keep talking to each other.”

Moving military activities abroad is not an option, according to Lieutenant General Boekholt-O’Sullivan. “The pilots of our helicopters and fighter planes are already educated and trained abroad. We do tanks together with the Germans in Germany. If we do even more abroad, I think the personnel will not stay with us, and that is really a problem.”

The Ministry of Defense expects to provide an answer to all submitted questions at the end of May. Only after the summer will the cabinet really choose where what should be located.