Renewed consultations on the accommodation of refugees in the Northwest Mecklenburg district did not lead to a breakthrough on Monday. Mayors of eleven larger cities have presented a proposal paper. Not all of the suggestions can be implemented because the resources were lacking, said district administrator Tino Schomann (CDU) after the deliberations on Monday evening in Grevesmühlen in the district committee.
Among other things, the municipalities want a maximum of 50 refugees to be accommodated in one place. According to Schomann, this is not feasible. In order to be able to operate accommodation economically, a minimum capacity of 100 to 150 people is required. Both the number of available properties and the support staff are limited. The social partners would have mirrored the latter to him.
Upahl Mayor Steven Springer expressed disappointment after the meeting. “It’s not what I imagined,” he said. His claim is that a solution for the entire district will be found as quickly as possible.
Container accommodation for 400 refugees is to be built in the town of 500 inhabitants. This should relieve two currently used gyms as soon as possible. The local residents have been demonstrating for weeks, including on Monday. Demonstrations against the project in front of the building continued until shortly before the start of the committee meeting at 6:30 p.m. According to the police, there were around 165 people with whistles and chants.
Already in the morning, about 30 people expressed their displeasure with the container village in front of the state parliament in Schwerin. On posters, the demonstrators complained that the villagers had not been included in the planning.
After riots between demonstrators and the police in the vicinity of the decisive district council meeting a few weeks ago, Upahl is also the focus of the nationwide debate about the burden on the municipalities.
But Upahl is not the only community in the district where citizens are taking to the streets. Last Wednesday, District Administrator Schomann was also confronted with 250 demonstrators in front of the venue at a town hall meeting in Gadebusch. The district administrator explained the plans for the construction of accommodation for 100 to 150 people on a state property in the village to the 140 citizens at the event.
The background to the current efforts to build new accommodation is both the renewed increase in the number of asylum seekers and the fact that the only accommodation in the district with 400 places in Wismar is already full.
Schomann expects 1,000 places to be accommodated this year. Time is already running out, and a solution must be found by the end of March. The reason: According to the district administrator, the accommodation in Upahl is full by April, the delivery time for residential containers is up to 12 weeks.
Schedule of the district NWM
