Municipal merger
Beveren Waas will not be the name of the new merged municipality between Beveren, Kruibeke and Zwijndrecht for the time being. The Zwijndrecht municipal council rejected the name by a large majority.
Exactly one week after Beveren Waas was proposed as the name for the new merger municipality between Beveren, Kruibeke and Zwijndrecht, that name has already been rejected by the Zwijndrecht municipal council. With 19 of the total of 24 votes against Beveren Waas as the name, the municipal council was very clearly against the name. The residents of Zwijndrecht were also not keen on Beveren Waas as a new name, because no less than eighty percent of voters chose Scheldewaas during the survey.
In particular, the way in which Beveren Waas was chosen as the name for the merged municipality offended many council members. That name was proposed by the steering group, which is concerned with the concrete elaboration of the merger.
But according to many Zwijndrecht and Kruibeek members, things are not going smoothly there. The Beverse members of the steering group in particular would push their will through there. “We will have to have a word with the steering group about the way in which decisions are made and agreements are made there,” says Zwijndrecht’s alderman Steven Vervaet (Groen).
Zwijndrecht and Kruibeke out of play
Alderman Vervaet mentions Bever’s mayor Marc Van de Vijver (CD&V) by name as the decisive factor in almost every decision and does not have the feeling that Zwijndrecht and Kruibeke have much to say. That feeling is apparently shared by many councilors in Zwijndrecht, as became apparent during the municipal council. “My own experience shows that almost no one in the steering group agreed on the way in which Beveren Waas came about as a new name, and that is why I am voting against,” says councilor Rudi Hendrikx (Vlaams Belang).
“The name Beveren Waas can be shelved for a while,” said the chairman of the municipal council Guido Weyns after the vote. The search for a name for the merged municipality continues.
