Dutch villages shrink as locals leave, but some fight back

Dutch villages are getting emptier, figures from national statistics agency CBS have shown, but some villages are fighting back.

Between 2011 and 2021 the population shrank in over half of villages with up to 1,000 inhabitants. That was also the case in 45% of larger villages with between 1,000 and 5,000 residents, the CBS said.

The decline is due to people leaving the Dutch countryside and moving into bigger towns, the CBS said. Rural parts of northern Groningen and Drenthe are among the worst affected areas.

Fewer people also means fewer amenities, such as banks, schools, a supermarket or a post office, which in turn only makes village life less appealing.

One of the main reasons people are leaving is the lack of housing for locals, Dorien Wissing (57) from the village of Megchelen in the Achterhoek (Gelderland) told the AD.

Wissing is one of a group of locals who are fighting to keep her village of just 1,000 inhabitants alive. Megchelen still has a primary school of 60 pupils, a vibrant local community and a football club but many of the amenities, such as a supermarket, have disappeared.

Wissing has been volunteering at a supermarket run by the locals for the last 10 years, “so the younger generation would have something,” she told the AD.

However, the lack of housing means young people have to go elsewhere. ”It is very difficult for youngsters to find an affordable home here,” Wissing said. Two of her sons have already moved to other villages.

But here too, the people of Megchelen have come together to solve the problem. Some 50 homes are being built as a result of local initiatives at different locations in the village.

“All these buidling projects have been started by people from the village,” local George Kiwitz, who owns five of the plots, said. “That is Megchelen. If no one else does it we do it ourselves,” he said.