No sale Van Gogh Church

After two years of intense negotiations with the municipality of Etten-Leur, there was agreement with the Board of Mayor and Aldermen on the terms of sale for the Van Gogh Church. Unfortunately, the Municipal Council rejected the proposal on May 25, 2021. The sale of the Van Gogh Church is now off the table (for the time being) and that was mainly in terms of money. A majority of the city council felt that the sale would yield too little. And that while sale would actually save the municipality money and protect the national monument / Van Gogh monument.

'Almost incomprehensible if the municipality rejects the proposal,' said Simone van der Heiden of Van Gogh Sites Foundation and Van Gogh Sites NV in Dagblad BN De Stem only a week earlier. But unfortunately the City Council decided otherwise by majority vote. The Sites Foundation, the Sites NV and the Vincent van Gogh Foundation regret the negative decision. It currently thwarts the ambitions the parties had to realize a multimedia experience, a crowd puller for Etten-Leur and the region, in and around the church.

"As the board of our foundation, in consultation with Van Gogh Brabant we will have to re-establish the 'mindset' and look at what possibilities there still are to make a smaller part of the ambition possible after all," said foundation chairman Lex Besselink. "As organizations, we are proud of the world-famous Brabants citizen who started his career in Etten-Leur. That offers so many opportunities. Of course we are now very disappointed. People do not value cultural heritage and arguments for sale, such as the boost for tourism, have been put aside by a large part of this council. Missed opportunities, but we will recover to see how we can still make a move with beautiful developments aroundr Van Gogh in Etten-Leur," said Besselink.