Westerwolde council is heading back to court because refugee settlement agency COA continues to break the maximum bed limit at the Ter Apel reception centre.

The council has already received the maximum compensation of €1.5 million from the COA following the previous court case, in which judges said the 2,000-bed limit must be adhered to.

However, the limit is still being broken on a “structural” basis, “and this is reason to take the next legal steps,” the council says. According to local broadcaster RTV Noord between 200 and 300 too many people are sleeping in Ter Apel every night.

The refugee agency has pledged to bring the total below the limit by September 1 but that is no reason to stop preparing a new round of legal action, the council said. The campaign is not about money, said mayor Jaap Velema. “We would rather get the numbers down than benefit financially.”

All new refugees have to report to the Ter Apel centre in Groningen province for processing, which has been overcrowded for the past 3.5 years. One of the main problems is the lack of suitable accommodation elsewhere, caused by the national housing shortage.

In June, justice ministry inspectors warned that staff and asylum seekers at the Ter Apel reception centre face “unacceptable risks of becoming a victim of a violent incident,” and the situation at the centre is “very serious‘.”

The centre’s population includes several hundred young men who come from safe third countries with no hope of their application succeeding. They live alongside families and people fleeing war zones in overcrowded conditions with few diversions, making for a volatile mix.

Last December the inspectors also sounded the alarm, saying the “most basic demands in terms of bed and board” are not being met and that the refugee settlement agency COA “urgently needs assistance”. 

That same month a report by Groningen’s local health board into living conditions at the centre, listed a litany of problems, including poor hygiene, dirty mattresses, overflowing bins and methadone use by some residents.

Since the new government was sworn in, it has been up to asylum minister Marjolein Faber, a former senator for the far-right PVV, to deal with the issue. She visited the centre in early July but has not yet commented on possible solutions.