Tilburg mayor announces resignation over too high work pressure

The Mayor of Tilburg, Theo Weterings, is quitting the position as of August 31. The 66-year-old is seeing the “intensity of the job and the long work weeks as more of a limitation,” he wrote in a letter addressed to the residents of Tilburg on Tuesday.

"Given my age and the desire to have time and space in the coming years for joint activities with my wife that bring us pleasure and happiness in life, I have asked His Majesty the King to grant me resignation as Mayor of Tilburg as of August 31."

VVD member Weterings was appointed mayor of the city in Brabant in 2017. He started his second six-year term in 2023. He has worked a total of 43 years for local and regional public offices, he wrote in the letter.

“Working for Tilburg, the city I was born and raised in, has been a source of joy for me for years. The contacts with many fellow townspeople and villagers were as open as they were pleasant,” Weterings added.

The mayor described Tilburg as “a city that reinvents itself constantly, is somewhat contrarian, and shows bravery in the decisions it makes. And above all is the city of Tilburgers: residents with a large heart that are always ready to help each other.”

Weterings has also been the mayor of Beverwijk and Haarlemmermeer in the past. He was a councilor in Tilburg from 1982 to 1985 before taking the same position in Diemen for four years from 1986. He combined his position as councilor and alderman for Rijswijk from 1994 to 2001 with a few years working as a member of the provincial council of Zuid-Holland.