Peel en Maas is a Dutch municipality in the province of Limburg.
It was created on January 1, 2010 from a merger of the
municipalities of Helden, Kessel, Meijel and Maasbree. Peel en Maas
had 43,561 inhabitants on 1 August 2020 (source: CBS) on an area of
161 km².
The municipality of Peel en Maas is located on the
left bank of the Maas and is part of North Limburg. It also falls in
the Peel, except for the strip on the Maas, which belongs to the
Maasland.
The Provincial
Executive wanted the municipalities in North Limburg to make a
decision before 1 April 2008 on how they want to work together. If
this were not successful, the province would take a decision on
behalf of the municipalities. The municipalities of Helden, Kessel,
Maasbree and Meijel could possibly form a new merged municipality.
The city council of Helden was unanimous in favor of merger.
Everyone in Maasbree was in favor of the merger, except the one-man
faction locally active. In Kessel only one councilor of Reëel
Alternatief was against the merger. All three municipalities have
indicated that they would in any case form a merged municipality,
even if Meijel did not want to participate. In Meijel, on the other
hand, only the opposition groups MVP and VVD were in favor of
reclassification, while the coalition group CDA was against. The
FWM-PvdA, the largest coalition party, took the decision on
September 10, 2007 and was against the reorganization. Meijel opted
for independence and only wanted a possible merger with the new
municipality of Peel en Maas in the long term.
On October 2,
2007, the mayors of the four municipalities announced that only
three municipalities would continue in a merged municipality. This
had to be a fact before January 1, 2010, at the next municipal
council election.
On 10 March, the Meijel municipal council
decided by a small majority (6-5) to opt for a merger with
neighboring municipalities Helden, Kessel and Maasbree. During the
extra council meeting on the reorganization of Meijel, the majority
of the FWM-PvdA faction voted against the merger. Subsequently, 4
members of this group decided to terminate their council membership
immediately or at short notice.
A working group was formed in
2008 to prepare for the merger and to inform staff from all
municipalities. This working group was called Peel en Maas. This
eventually became the municipality's name in January 2010.
The municipality of Peel en Maas got its name from the inhabitants.
The name was chosen in three stages:
1. General Name Election
Anyone could submit any name as many times as they wanted through a
campaign set up by a local communications agency over the Internet. From
the names submitted, a working group - consisting of people from every
old municipality, supplemented by an independent chairman - made a top 3
(1 - municipality of Helden, 2 - municipality of Land van Kessel and 3 -
municipality of Peel en Maas).
2. Top 3 vote
Based on the
choice made in phase 1, a second round of voting was prepared. All
residents of the participating municipalities who were 14(!) years or
older (this was a very deliberate choice because the youth became more
involved in the choice of name as a result) received a letter with a
ballot paper containing a unique code, to be able to vote again via the
internet. to vote. For people who did not want to vote digitally, the
ballot paper could also be handed in or returned to the municipality.
This was done en masse. The paper ballots were again counted by
representatives of all municipalities under the leadership of the head
of population affairs. Via the internet, the name municipality of Helden
received a slight preference. With the manually counted votes added, the
name municipality of Peel en Maas eventually received the most votes. It
was a real neck and neck race with a minimal difference.
3.
Conferencing
With these three remaining names, a joint public meeting
was held with all mayors, aldermen and municipal councilors of the
merged municipalities. The name Peel en Maas, chosen by the population,
was confirmed here and the new name of the municipality of Peel en Maas
was a fact.
The municipal council of Peel en Maas has twenty-seven seats.
Early municipal elections were held on 18 November 2009, eight political
groups entered the municipal council. The coalition was formed by the
CDA, PvdA/GroenLinks and the VVD. The local parties formed one
opposition party in the city council, called Lokaal Peel en Maas. During
this period, two council members of Local Peel and Maas split off and
founded a new party. A council member of the VVD also split off during
this period.
On March 20, 2014, the first municipal elections
took place after the municipal reorganization. The CDA became the
largest party in terms of number of votes, but was not allowed to
participate in the new coalition. The coalition was formed by Local Peel
en Maas, VVD and PvdA/GroenLinks. In June 2017, one councilor split from
Local Peel en Maas and initially set up his own party. Later the council
member joined the VVD. Just before the 2018 municipal elections, two
other councilors split from Local Peel and Maas. They joined the party
AndersNu. As a result, the coalition lost the majority in the council,
but was not expelled by the opposition.
In the municipal
elections of 2018, the CDA won one seat and thus became the largest
party again. The new coalition after the 2018 elections is formed by
CDA, Local Peel en Maas and the VVD.
The municipality of Peel en Maas has had a partnership with the German city of Grevenbroich since 2016. On December 2, 2017, information boards were placed at De Keverberg Castle in Kessel and at the castle in Grevenbroich, with information from both castles on the separate boards.
The municipality has its own public local broadcaster, Omroep P&M.