Peel en Maas, Netherlands

 

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.

 

History

Municipal reorganization 2008

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.

 

Name

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.

 

Politics

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.

 

Partnership

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.

 

Media

The municipality has its own public local broadcaster, Omroep P&M.