Tilburg’s mayor Ruud Vreeman is clinging on to his position as head of the country’s eighth-largest local authority, despite losing the support of most of the city council.

At a meeting on Wednesday night, 24 out of 39 councillors said an impossible situation had arisen because Veerman had not told them about the financial problems with the building of a new city centre theatre. A motion of no-confidence failed by 24 to 15.
Council officials are now discussing what to do next with the queen’s commissioner in Noord Brabant. Wim van de Donk. Officially, the city council cannot sack the mayor.
Last week, it emerged a majority of city councillors thought Vreeman should quit after a highly critical report into the plans to convert the old Midi cinema in the city centre into a theatre. The report said the mayor and council executives had not passed on bad news about the finances and the project was badly prepared.
In the end, the theatre was overbudget by €1.9m, or 40%.
Veerman told councillors he had kept the bad news to himself because it was better for the city.