Port of Antwerp / The Other Side

Port of Antwerp

The Other Side

Website about sustainable development in the Port of Antwerp

Speech by Johan De Vriendt to the international congress 'Heritage care and active citizenship' in Mechelen (24 March 2009)

Is it a good cause to swallow up a paradise as Doel for the sake of economic profit ?

Doel is a small, 700-year old village in the Flemish polder on the left bank of the river Scheldt, north of the city/port of Antwerp. By the early sixties, the ever expanding port of Antwerp started to build an extensive network of docks, interconnecting channels, and locks at the left bank, to the south of Doel. From the early 1970s on, the Port Authority ignored farmers' and villagers' protests and started to expropriate houses in several polder villages. Hereby they were sacrificing local rural communities and heritage (farms, villages and landscape) to industrial and economic interests.

Successful actions by protest groups and local politicians in the late seventies, however, managed to temporarily put a halt to the Port Authority's voracious expansion plans and the village of Doel experienced well over a decade of renewed hope and revival. Thanks to the ferry service, the cosy polder village even became a flourishing tourist attraction.

Yet, its survival dreams were relatively short-lived. As of the mid-nineties, plans for a new containerdock again tightened the industrial noose around the community's neck. This prospect led many disillusioned villagers to "voluntarily" sell their houses to the government. Although the government promised to keep the village intact until there would be a decision about building a second dock, the government refused to temporarily rent vacant houses to candidate dwellers, preferring instead to let the properties go to ruin. This premeditated process of neglect undermined the village's chances of survival and caused the number of inhabitants to drop from 900 to 380 people.

By the end of 2005, however, the plans for the second container terminal that would definitively wipe Doel off the map were shelved for an indefinite period. This sparked renewed hopes that the expansion of the port may stop at the village's southern border. But the Flemish Government decided that Doel will be demolished anyway as of 2009, even if the Saeftinghe terminal never materializes …

This month the inhabitants received an official letter notifying them their houses should be evacuated by 1 September 2009.

Demolition politics in Doel

To make it clear. Today a further expansion of the harbour is economical not viable. The village of Doel is legally and in fact still a village with, according to the last census 380 official inhabitants. The village and the surrounding environment are still designated as a residential and agrarian area with historical value.

But the government did everything they could to leave the properties they acquired susceptible to decay and plunder. That gave rise to the argument that the architectural heritage could be demolished. This policy resulted in a plan to demolish more than 70% of the properties that were acquired by the devolved Flemish Executive.

Heritage in Doel

The publication, 'Inventory of architectural heritage of East Flanders' counts no less as 65 buildings in the village of Doel. A part thereof is in the meantime demolished. The structure of the village is still according the original draughtboard layout of the 17th century. This draughtboard layout is unique in Flanders. The Dutch dike builders who revived Doel after the war against the Spanish occupation imported it.

't Hooghuis, the high house, dates from the 17th century and is a protected monument, as is the windmill on the dike of the river Schelde.

The windmill is the oldest brick built mill in the country. The windmill originates from the year 1611. Restoration works to the church were carried out only a few years ago. The church organ is also a protected monument.

Typical are also the harbour of Doel & Prosperpolder, the dikes, the hamlets Ouden Doel and Prosperpolder, many monumental farmsteads, the presence of the world-famous Antwerp painter Peter Paul Rubens and his father in law, Jan Brant.

Together with the river Schelde and the saltings is the polder in Doel a major European bird habitat. The interwoven connection of cultural, agricultural, natural and historical heritage is the trump card for Doel.

Doel has a moving war history: the Spanish occupation, the Austrian occupation, the Napoleonic era, the Belgian rising in 1830, WW1 & WW2 were all troubled times for Doel, but the village survived every flood or war disaster.

Heritage a Human Right! Also in Doel

Heritage is more as some relic of the past. Heritage is a living entity of beacons in a lasting environment, building bricks for a qualitative rich life. Heritage and environment are interwoven. They exist always in proportion to humanity. Humanity is responsible for its level of importance, but therefore heritage is a factor in identifying our identity and our welfare. Heritage and environment are however changeable data. Economical, social, demographic, cultural and ecological factors are all influencing. Therefore change must be guided in cooperation by all the relevant actors, which include also individual stakeholders as for instance barkeepers and beekeepers.

The Convention of Faro (Council of Europe 2005) we saw the introduction of the notion "heritage community", that is each group of people with a partial stake in (the preservation) of a particular piece of heritage. According to the Council of Europe heritage is a human right. In the Netherlands there are already 200 agrarian nature organisations (or rural communities) active where farmers, rural dwellers, environment preservation organisations, businesses and hunters are spontaneously cooperating with each other. Since the introduction of the Belvedere Note in 1999 an integrated policy of nature conservation, cultural-historical heritage conservation & spatial planning/ordering in the Netherlands is a fact (www.belvedere.nu).

Doel is above all a village, a living community of people. New and old inhabitants, tens of thousands visitors and friends of Doel are making up a strong heritage community which shouldn’t be taken too lightly according to the Convention of Faro. It is an international community open to everyone, it reflects, agitates and aspires to a partnership with the government to safeguard the future of the Schelde's left bank for future generations. The heritage community of Doel aspires for a policy where a good quality of life is top priority.

Therefore the demolition policy needs to be stopped forthwith and one should focus on a biography study of the region. Out of this work could a plan develop that is acceptable to all involved and where all stakeholders can identify with. It is the heritage community Doel that started this process with our document "The hub Doel-Lillo".

This important document is a sort of master plan. It includes the manifesto of KunstDoel. KunstDoel or ArtDoel is an international organisation that stands for an artistic alternative for the village, in respect for its identity as an historical village. At this very moment ArtDoel is busy turning the village into the first open air museum village of the world. World-famous artists as Luc Tuymans and Michelangelo Pistoletto are taking part, beneath hundreds of other painters, photographers and other artists. The World première will take place the 24^th of May.

The master plan ‘The Hub Doel-Lillo’ also contains the Plan for a future for Doel: a village in the Port of Antwerp’. This plan is the result of the cooperation between the Heritage Community of Doel and Doel 2020, the Juridical and Action group of the citizens of Doel.

The joined action groups, Doel 2020, ArtDoel and the Heritage Community of Doel, stand for an alternative that integrates soft values and hard values. The two corresponding villages on both sides of the river Scheldt can become the link, the hub, between the hard values of the city and port of Antwerp and the soft values of the open space of the polder with her small historical villages and the natural, agricultural and cultural heritage.

The name of the village is a statement in itself: Doel does mean in English ‘Purpose’, ‘Goal’ or ‘Cause’. Our government can make it a ‘Good cause’, a paradise for heritage, art, habitants and people who are looking for peace and air in one of the busiest areas at this earth. Instead of swallowing it up, our government can make it a meeting point of industry, culture, heritage and nature, a source of inspiration, a true home for a drifted society, a centre of anew rooting active citizens of all kinds: industrials and heritage workers, environmental activists and farmers, artists and other strange birds, in cooperation.

Instead of swallowing it up, we want to keep this village a paradise for swallows, the living link between nature, culture, art and infrastructure. The swallow has become the symbol of our struggle. Doel still owns one of the biggest colonies of swallows, of martins. A swallow flies each winter more than 10000 kilometres but always returns to its old nest, their and our home! We all are connected by heritage. Heritage is a connecting force. That’s true active citizenship, that’s the social goal of heritage care!

Johan De Vriendt
Heritage Community Doel (Erfgoedgemeenschap Doel)

Belgian Antwerp Port Authority will never learn from errors and mismanagement in the past

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the law of March 28th, 1995 (effective Januari 1,1997) through which the Antwerp Port Authority was granted autonomous corporate rights in the Antwerp City Council, a symposium was organized on November 5th, 2007. The future of Antwerp port policy on the left bank, the Waasland Port, was on top of the agenda.

by Edmond Reyn

Back to 1998 - 2000

During the week preceding the symposium Port Alderman M. Van Peel, who had succeeded Port Alderman L. Delwaide jr., in May 2007, caused due controversy by the political opinions he expressed in an article of Trends (a financial and economic weekly) on November 1st, 2007: "The Saeftinghe dock is a must - I was involved in the realization of the Deurganck Dock. I would like to play a role in the realization of the next dock."

This has brought about the idea that the Port Alderman of 2007 still lives with the realities of ten years ago, being 1997. At the symposium he described his views on the policy with the following remarkable statement: "As an immediate result of the operational independence of the Port Authority, the city and the port have partially grown apart and this must change: the port and the city must grow towards one another again." In other words, politics have to regain control over the Autonomous Port of Antwerp, as was the case in the past.

At the end of 1997 M. Van Peel was one of the five Flemish CVP-SP politicians who signed a secret agreement for immediate construction of the Deurganck Dock. Later this secret agreement grew into a dictate of the political world, unprecedented in the Belgian history of the port, by which even the usual procedure of the Belgian Council of State was obstructed so as to give absolute priority to port plans over the lawfulness of existing district plans. Besides, this secret agreement made another dream (ever since 1965) of the Antwerp Port come true: wiping the polder village of Doel on the left bank of the river Scheldt off the map completely.

In November 1997 Antwerp planners and economists boasted the results of a cost-benefit analysis "Economic Evaluation Container (Quay) Dock West" aimed at proving scientifically that the Waasland Port was in need of a large container dock at once and that it had to be brought into operation as soon as possible, or else Antwerp would fail catching up with the European container competition altogether.

The publicized results of this analysis predicted "financial returns" never seen before in the Belgian port history.

Facts from this history

However, recent history has shown that the estimated returns weren’t achieved in any way and that they can’t possibly be achieved ever. Moreover, historiography has found out that the planners of the Port Authority, supported (in their doings) by politicians of the Flemish government, haven’t learned a thing from their strategic fallacies in the past. This can be illustrated in the first place by the predicted fiasco of the petrochemical port in the Doel Dock, which hasn't been used since the seventies of the previous century, and is now being filled again with silt and dredged sand from the Deurganck Dock!

The Antwerp strategic thinking has never recognized the relocation of European petrochemical industry to the Far East, as it was announced at the time.

Furthermore, profound analysis of this port strategy has shown that the Waasland Port isn’t run by a truly strategic VISION. At present all port plans are only concerned with matters of budget. We’ll have to wait and see what budgets are available and not uncommonly these budgets will be meant to make up losses resulting from excessive extra costs that keep on emerging everywhere.

The real cost of the Deurganck Dock, as published by the Belgian Audit Office and confirmed by the Flemish Government, became "officially" three times the budgeted cost of 2005. They did not take into account the immense cost of infrastructure such as the modification of the E34 to a proper motorway and the construction at this very moment of an entirely new railway system, of which the new railway tunnel next to the Liefkenshoek Tunnel must become a part.

A simple sum of the non-budgeted direct expenses and the threefold of the original budget (as confirmed by the National Audit Office), eventually adds up to an ‘out of pocket’ sum that is not threefold the original budget, but tenfold. Economists and budget consultants of the Antwerp Port Authority must urgently take some lessons from the professional industrial companies to stop squandering Flemish Community funds. But in Antwerp it is common talking that: "Since we are the biggest source of National Product, the Flemish Government, as a rule, will have to pay."

Not megalomania but thoughtlessness

Port Alderman M. Van Peel doesn’t spare any effort to preach his Saeftinghe Dock dream via the press who favour him. The autonomous Antwerp Port Authority formally announced at the 5^th November colloquium by mouth of M. Van Peel and encouraged by the Flemish Prime Minister, "that a second, even bigger open container dock, the New Saeftinghe Dock, will have to be constructed at a close parallel distance to the Deurganck Dock on top of the polder village Doel, in order to secure and maintain Antwerp’s future as a major container port".

The best way to describe this "container strategy" is that it remains based on a thoughtless support of the trade from China, hoping that in case Chinese export declines, India will have expanded enough to buffer the Chinese decline.

Analysing the efficiency of container processing, a second strategic error about the Waasland Port becomes evident.

In the Antwerp policy the efficiency of container processing has always been connected to availability of container quays "in the OPEN SCHELDT" meaning the open Deurganck Dock and the open container quays North Sea Terminal and Europe Terminal, in other words OUTSIDE the existing big sluices.

In June 2005, two weeks before the first container ship moored in the new Deurganck Dock, Antwerp officially put in operation the new terminal of the Italian ship-owners MSC at the Delwaide Dock, BEHIND the sluices. Today in 2008 the highest efficiency and productivity is reported from the quays of this Delwaide Dock.

By the end of 2007 the Deurganck Dock of 1997 was only partly in use, but it became evident already that Antwerp was ready to face competition with other European Ports. The argumentation in use today is that Antwerp quays do remain free of congestion.

In the euphoria of the official opening of the Deurganck Dock in July 2005, figures were published that allow calculating the future potential of the "open Scheldt terminals". The total container potential amounts to 12 million TEU, subdivided in North Sea Terminal and Europe Terminal (each 2 million TEU), and Deurganck Dock (8 million), an estimate that is already three times the original estimated number of TEU leading to the final decision of constructing this Deurganck Dock in 1998.

For 2007 a record figure was announced for the Deurganck Dock of 1.2 million TEU (= 13% of 12 million). This number however contains a great deal of containers scheduled for the North Sea Terminal and the Europe Terminal, which were temporarily out of order.

All statistics on the expected growth (doubling) to 3 million TEU (25%) and later to 6 million (50%) do indicate that mobility around the Antwerp Port will get stuck. The Antwerp Port Authority reacts stoically to this observation: mobility will sort out itself through the planned Liefkenshoek railway tunnel and the scheduled new Oosterweel tunnel.

A point of view several mobility experts don’t agree with. The fact that this mobility chaos will already be manifest in 2008, 2009 and 2010 is being ignored completely, while both tunnels will still be on the drawing boards and won’t be finished nor in use for at least another five years.

Facts and figures on container transport (containerization)

In view of a final demarcation of the Port of Antwerp and its surroundings, a substantial extra quay-wall capacity for container shipment has been planned. These plans are based on the drafted Environmental Impact Assessment Report. The calculations and prospects in this report were underpinned by the ECSA. (European Centre for Strategic Analysis - 2005, final report EOS, Port of Antwerp)

Seven scenarios have been examined. Scenario B1 (which demands construction of the Saeftinghe

Dock) foresees the need for a shipment capacity of 17.95 million TEU (TEU being the world standard 20-feet container). These calculations are based on a prognosis predicting the productivity of 24.000 TEU per ha./yr. The Antwerp Harbour House economists do report an actual efficiency of 18.000 TEU per ha./yr. for the Deurganck Dock in operation.

According to the EOS definitions, 422 ha. out of 712 ha. land available for containerization in the Port of Antwerp already belongs to PSA. PSA’s most performing handlings are situated in the Delwaide Dock with a 24.000 TEU per ha./yr. productivity.

If the intensity of the highly technological PSA investments that are now implemented, will be diverted elsewhere in the Antwerp Harbour, in particular in the Deurganck Dock, the current productivity per ha./yr. behind the locks will soon be equalized and exceeded.

In the near future the ‘Maas Plains II’ in Rotterdam will become operational. They openly claim that the new facilities will start at the productivity level of 43,000 TEU per ha/year.

With the present productivity per ha/year in the Delwaide Dock and the prospects of the ‘Maas Plains II’ in mind, and using EOS based calculations, one can easily conclude that the present container traffic capacity of the Antwerp Port becomes fully sufficient. Moreover, not only sufficient but even compatible with the higher productivity per ha/year. So there is no reason for using plan B1, or any other plan.

712 ha times 43,000 TEU ha/year will lead to potential capacities of 30.62 million TEU for 2030, which is a lot more than the prognosis for plan B1 (17.95 million). Hence, the question remains : why the Waasland Port needs a new Saeftinghe Dock?

For several years all Antwerp reports have been fanatical about the predictions by the London OCEAN SHIPPING CONSULTANTS. Well, at this very moment the most recent OSC reports do predict indeed a growth suspension for the next decennium.

Deliberate strategy of low added value

In the course of 2006 and 2007 a discussion concerning the added value of port activities has arisen in Flanders. This discussion revealed how Antwerp has deliberately chosen for a "strategy of lower added value". The strategy implies a major role for container traffic, raising many questions about their economic consistency.

Port analysts tend to compare Antwerp to Singapore, a logistic success (it became the direct motive for creating the Deurganck Dock, by the way). But there remained a logistic thinking error in the strategy of the Antwerp container terminal. A short comparison can clarify this. Singapore has a limited area available for its transit container port, which therefore has been conceived as a logistic hub for ship-to-ship transfer. Antwerp on the other hand is chiefly a port of final destination for the Belgian and European hinterland, built on a vast area, which consequently needs a very expensive railway and motorway infrastructure. Hence, the high cost alternative.

Corporate governance on the left-bank

In the 1978 Regional plan that is still legitimate in 2008, the village of Doel is coloured as residential area and the polders as agricultural area. However, the responsible official bodies, such as the Port Alderman of Antwerp and the Mayor of Beveren, don’t bother with the law and impose illegal dictates on the inhabitants of the left-bank.

‘Gazet Van Antwerpen’ recently published (27 December 2007) an interview with Port Alderman M. Van Peel: "The port of Antwerp must be prepared to the future. Give Antwerp more capacity, a Saeftinghe Dock". To a question raised by journalist P. Verbraeken, who mentioned the strategic plan on the demarcation of the port area, he stated: "Just a minute, that area is now, I believe, industrial area"… Apparently the alderman responsible for the port of Antwerp – who actually lives on the left bank – is not aware of the fact that judgment nr. 109.563 of 30 July 2002 by the Council of State (the highest judicial body in Belgium) states that the 1978 Regional Plan, including the residential area in the village of Doel, is still valid.

Every sensible Waasland person, together with many Antwerp professional managers, are convinced that the excessive cost of this second new dock, the Saeftinghe Dock, should be put to a much more rational use if it were spent on the failing motorway system around Antwerp and in the Flemish provinces.

Nature : protection or fundamentalism?

By the end of the sixties, the container business (which originated in the U.S.) had also become popular in Rotterdam. In 1965 however, the Antwerp port development right bank’s "10-year plan" drew to an end, without any well-considered vision on this major revolution in port transport economy. It wasn’t until 1982 that the Antwerp right-bank was equipped with the Delwaide Dock, trying to keep up and compete with Rotterdam.

Simultaneously, however, the assertion was made that big container ships could not be loaded or unloaded "behind the sluices" like the Zandvliet Sluice (1967) and the Berendrecht Sluice (1989).

Consequently, it was decided that container terminals should be constructed INSIDE THE SALT MARSHES of the river Scheldt, within the proximity of the sluices.

Although these salt marshes were protected nature reserves, the building permit for the first container terminal (Europe Terminal) was quickly granted, and the first container terminal was completed in 1989, coinciding with conpletion of the Berendrecht sluice.

In the protected salt marshes north of the Zandvliet Sluice, even a second terminal was built, called North Sea Terminal.

When planning for the first terminal on the left bank inside the river Scheldt, later changed to the Deurganck Dock, the Flemish government, in a regular parlementary meeting, decided to lift the existing protection of the Scheldt’s salt marshes. By simple government decision they would no longer be considered being nature reserves.

It goes without saying that within the European Community, measures were being generated to stop the abuse accompanying many European harbour extensions. Ultimately, this led to the well-known European Bird guidelines and Habitat guidelines.

Resulting from obvious lack of respect by Antwerp local authorities for these European guidelines when granting building permits for the construction of the Deurganck Dock, the Belgian Council of State decided to suspend the regional plan Sint-Niklaas-Lokeren and the ongoing building permit for the Deurganck Dock in June 2000.

This suspension caused a complete reversal by the Port of Antwerp Authority (AGHA) in their policy towards the guidelines for nature conservation.

A plot was hatched between AGHA, the Flemish civil services and environmental action groups for nature conservation, of which the consequences are visible today in the remaining Scheldt polders of Beveren.

The Antwerp Port planners are obviously and obstinately abusing the European guidelines for nature conservation by destroying splendid, existing nature and replacing it with bogus nature.

This even occurs when some European guidelines are being implemented, without taking into consi-deration, those guidelines were rejected by the European parliament or withdrawn by the European commission.

The nature policy of the Antwerp Port on the Scheldt's left bank is actually being branded as nature fundamentalism. Every opportunity that occurs is being taken to destroy nature instead of conserving it.

In Flanders, imposed Environmental Impact Assessment has turned into a bureaucratic shambles with the single intention to fill hundreds of pages in order to put off people interested in trying to study and analyze its content.

To many people these sham compensations of nature do demonstrate an abuse of power resulting in tremendously high expenses and the destruction of precious rural and natural heritage.

These destructions of natural heritage are blatant violations of the habitat guidelines because the European Strategic Environmental Assessment and Environmental Impact Assessment have been introduced to protect landscape and natural heritage, but are never implemented.

European nature guidelines on no occasion state that destruction of a substantial part of nature (in this case polder land) has to be compensated by destroying another, equally sized part of polder land.

These rules are wrongly claimed by politicians and civil service and the impression is created, however incorrectly, that compensations for nature are enforced European obligations. That assertion is totally incorrect and is also being confirmed by answers of the European Commission to parliamentary questions.

Edmond Reyn
Graduate Chemical Engineer
Production Manager Polysar Belgium
International Project Manager
Synthetic Rubber Consultant

"New Left Bank dock will produce major traffic jams"

A growing number of economists, managers and mobility specialists are criticizing the Flemish Government’s endeavour to become the ‘logistic centre’ of Europe. If yet another new container dock (Saeftinghe Dock) is built, as the Port and City of Antwerp are now demanding, the region will become inaccessible:

"Considering the strongly enhanced intensity on the ring road and the approaching motorways, the accessibility of the region via road will come under severe pressure", is the conclusion of a mobility study report set up to investigate the new environmental impact for the port."

Meanwhile Bond Beter Leefmilieu (Federation of the Flemish Environmental Movement), full member of the central workgroup, demands that the environmental impact report is made over because the possibility "to extend on the inside" of the port has not been studied adequately: "We feel cheated. The complete job is intellectually dishonest. We insist that the report is revised."

(from the well-respected Flemish weekly Knack 16-1-2007)

Doel in a nutshell

There is no place where nature and culture are so intertwined than Doel. The first notion of this place dates from 1267, when Doel was still called ‘De Doolen’ (etym. ‘border water’). It was an island until the 18^th century amid flooded land. During hundreds of years Doel, situated on the border, was a political and religious curiosity. In some period of history it used to be unclear who Doel really belonged to: the independent State of The Netherlands or the region controlled by the Spanish.

The chessboard pattern of Doel is unique for our country. It dates from the 80-Years’ War (1568-1648) and consists of 3 streets parallel to the riverfront, 4 streets perpendicular to those, and all of that criss-crossed with alleys and corridors. This pattern has not grown through the ages, but it was designed and built in a few years’ time. Ever since 1614, when this geometric lay-out was mapped, NOTHING has been changed to it. This fact makes the village a rare example of urbanization in more than one respect.

Even so Doel has more to offer than its street pattern. Close to the village centre, on the outside of its dike, there is a tidal harbour containing an original 19th century drainage sluice. Nowadays the harbour serves as a yacht-basin.

The village boasts many historical buildings such as the oldest (!) stone windmill of the country (1600) and the Baroque "Hooghuys" (1613) that belonged to Pieter Paul Rubens’ family.

Some interesting old architecture of middle class and farming class can be found in the village and also many houses dating from the 18th and 19th century. One of those is the 18th century town hall in Camerman Street and the Baroque parsonage dating from the same period in Hooghuis Street.

Visitors exploring outside the village may discover wonderful, often 17th or 18th century farms and barns. Still many of these valuable buildings are endangered in short term.

Doel doesn’t have high-rise blocks and the present day church building has been dominating the village skyline since 1852. It was built in Neo-classical style and was reopened in 1998 after 14 years of restoration works, costing more than 1 million euro. On the adjacent graveyard there are some very remarkable tombs and a calvary erected from old gravestones

The Scheldt Consecration Festivities are an annual highlight in Doel. During that weekend many visitors come to show their solidarity with the village and also to enjoy the cosy atmosphere, the terraces, the boat show and many other activities that are organized every year.

Future ?

From historical and architectural point of view, the village contains an extremely interesting patrimony. The natural beauty and ecology has more to offer than any average village in Flanders. Such a unique site, next to the Port of Antwerp, provides great opportunities. This is also recognized by some entrepreneurs of the Port.

Yet the Antwerp Port Authorities, supported by the Flemish Government, keep refusing to abandon the annihilation scenario of Doel.

Jan Creve
Historian

Petition Commission European Parliament bend their efforts to preservation of Doel

A delegation of the inhabitants of the threatened polder village Doel handed a petition to the Petition Commission of the European Parliament, end of last year. They were accompanied by honorary senator Paul Staes and European MP Bart Staes.

The delegation once again stressed there are no reasons whatsoever for the village to disappear at the moment, including the interests of the port of Antwerp. Nothing keeps the government from saving the village until a final verdict is reached: preservation or demolition. Therefore the inhabitants of Doel appeal to the Petition Commission of the European Parliament to stop the ongoing madness which causes social distress immediately.

If Doel has to give way for justifiable reasons of employment or economical-maritime interests that cut across the preservation of the last polder village by the Scheldt, a new situation arises. But tearing down a village out of mere stubbornness of a few politicians who have ‘decided’ thus, is unacceptable, according to the petition.

Paul Staes
Honorary Senator
Former Member of the European Parliament

Justice for Doel

Starting with the first plans in 1997 to demolish Doel the inhabitants have also been fighting their juridical battle. Under the leadership of Matthias Storme, professor European Law, more than ten professional lawyers have founded "Justice for Doel". They are trying to stop the destruction of this historic village by all legal means. Their activities even stopped the ongoing works of the container Deurganck Dock during more than one year.

The biggest victory for the lawyers of "Justice for Doel" was on July 30, 2002. Then the Council of State (the highest judicial body in Belgium) formally decided that the political change of allocation of Doel to industrial area was an illegal decision, more over that the 1978 Regional Plan, including the residential area in the village of Doel, remained valid.

Matthias Storme
Professor of law at the Universiteit Antwerpen and at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Member of the Brussels Bar

Contact information

• E-mail: info@portofantwerp-theotherside.be

• Ferdinand De Bondt (Study Cell Luctor et Emergo)
Honorary Senator, Former Secretary of State for Institutional Reforms
E-mail: ferdinand.debondt@scarlet.be

• Edmond Reyn
Graduate Chemical Engineer, Production Manager Polysar Belgium, International Project Manager, Synthetic Rubber Consultant
E-mail: edm.reyn@skynet.be

• Paul Staes
Honorary Senator, Former Member of the European Parliament
E-mail: paul.staes@skynet.be

• Prof. Matthias Storme (Justice for Doel)
Professor of law at the Universiteit Antwerpen and at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Member of the Brussels Bar
E-mail: matthias.storme@ks4v.be

• Johan De Vriendt (Heritage Community)
E-mail: erfgoedgemeenschap-doel@hotmail.com

• Doel 2020 (Doel village inhabitants association)
Jan Creve, historian, e-mail: jan.creve@scarlet.be

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The Other Side on the internet

• www.portofantwerp-theotherside.be
• www.rijkpolderland.be
• www.doel2020.org
• www.kunstdoel.net

Map of the the Antwerp Port/Left Bank & the village of Doel

Speech by Johan De Vriendt to the international congress 'Heritage care and active citizenship' in Mechelen (24 March 2009)