Roeselare (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Roeselare’s €22,000 colourful chair project faces criticism from N-VA’s Vanessa Dehullu over losses, while Alderman Michèle Hostekint defends its community value despite 60+ chairs lost.
As VRT News reported, a project in Roeselare to brighten up public spaces is getting criticised because it’s losing money and not being watched closely. Since 2022, the city has put colourful chairs in parks and squares every summer. They mentioned that the goal was to get people together, especially after the COVID-19 lockdowns.
According to officials, the idea was to make the areas fun and easy to use, hoping people would enjoy the public spaces more. But the project hasn’t gone well. Over the last 3 years, more than 60 chairs have been lost, either stolen or damaged. Even with these losses, the city has kept the project going each year without fixing the problems.
What’s the real cost and benefit of Roeselare’s chair project?
Vanessa Dehullu, a city council member from the N-VA party, is strongly criticising the project. She calls it “musical chairs with taxpayers’ money.” She says that even though the project seems fun, about €22,000 has been spent on chairs that are now gone or ruined. Dehullu believes this is hard to defend, especially when the city’s money is tight.
She thinks that keeping the project the same without changes shows a lack of financial responsibility. She wants the city to either change how the project works, maybe with more secure chairs or better supervision, or to use the money for things that are more valuable and accountable to the people.
Michèle Hostekint, the Alderman for Nature from the Vooruit party in Roeselare, has responded to the criticism about the colourful chair project. She’s taking a more positive stance. Hostekint agrees that some chairs have been lost over the past 3 years. However, she highlights the good things the project has done for the community.
She says that the chairs are popular with the people who live there. They use the chairs a lot and even ask for more chairs to be put in other places. She explains that around 20 chairs are lost each year.
Sometimes, they are stolen or damaged. She says this is not completely unexpected, since the chairs are often used in public spaces. The city has tried to stop theft by marking the chairs, but this hasn’t completely solved the problem.
Hostekint also clarified that the city didn’t plan to buy new chairs every year. Buying over 210 chairs in 2022 was a one-time thing. About 160 of those chairs are still being used, which she believes is enough for now.
She mentioned that the city won’t replace chairs that are lost or broken. They’ll look at the situation again later. If there aren’t enough chairs left to make the project worthwhile, they’ll decide what to do.
