Flevoland leader: “Insufficient infrastructure to accommodate refugees"

The Flevoland provincial director, Leen Verbeek has written a critical letter to the cabinet on the accommodation of refugees. "Our society must now pay a high price for non-sufficient infrastructure to accommodate and counsel refugees", Verbeek wrote, according to RTL Nieuws. Flevoland is the first province to respond to Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk's call to take in more refugees. The province is taking in an additional 1,750 asylum seekers, bringing the total up to 5,250 refugees living in Flevoland. According to Verbeek, in recent years he has seen the phasing-out of functioning facilities across the Netherlands. Verbeek further commented that accepting refugees now forces them to bring capacity back up to par. It is unclear as to where the province will place the additional refugees, Dronten has however announced it would accommodate an additional 500. Minister Plasterk has not yet received many responses on his call for provinces to take in additional refugees of two weeks ago. He stated that he is not too worried, saying that he understands that more time is needed.