The Belgian village of Doel is facing its final battle for survival
against plans to expand the adjacent port of Antwerp that will
erase it from the map to make way for a new dock.
Doel is wedged between a nuclear power plant and an existing set of
docks and once had a population of over a thousand. Bu it is now a
collection of boarded up houses and vacated shops and home to only
about 30 people.
The Flemish regional government aims to include the village in one
of Europe's largest ports from June 17 over the objections of the
remaining villagers who will ask the country's highest
administrative court to block this change.
"You have to be very stubborn and you have to be willing to put up
a fight, even if you can't be sure of victory," said Frie Lauwers,
who is part of the initiative to keep the village alive, and lives
in a former school building.
The transformation plan would dig a ship-sized dock across the
village and turn surrounding farmland into a nature reserve, an
environmental requirement for the port's expansion.
The future of the 400-year-old village of Doel, which is
overshadowed by the two cooling towers of a nuclear power plant to
the north, appeared bleak as early as 1998 when the regional
government first outlined plans to expand the port.
Years of uncertainty have turned Doel into a ghost town, covered in
graffiti.
Many left in the late 1990s when authorities offered premiums to
those who sold their homes. The government plans to dispossess the
remaining 10 home owners.
Those, like Lauwers, who do not own homes, are still able rent
after a court blocked termination of their contracts a few years
ago.
Remaining villagers say that, in spite of its proximity to the port
and the power station, Doel has its architectural attractions, such
as a house which is said to have belonged to the family of baroque
painter Peter Paul Rubens.
But years of looting, squatting and neglect have pushed the village
beyond the point of no return, according to others.
"I think the village is dead now and you can't reanimate a dead
calf," said Frans Sans, who lived in the village for most of his
life but left about four years ago.
The villagers did win one battle in 2012 when the country's highest
administrative court overturned a similar decision to turn the
village into a part of the port. The government simply revised its
plans.
Should the villagers lose the appeal, it remains unclear exactly
when Doel would disappear. The authorities have no fixed time line
for the new dock's construction and could also use the land for
other ends, such as a container storage area.
The port of Antwerp is seen from the Belgian village of Doel June
5, 2013
The walls of abandoned buildings are painted with graffiti in the
Belgian village of Doel
Christel Wille (L) and Max Heijligen sit on the terrace of one of
the only cafes remaining in the Belgian village of
Doel