Senior building officials meet in Beckum

The town of Beckum hosted the autumn conference of senior building officials in the Münster administrative district of the Association of Towns and Municipalities.

21 November 2023 by Sandra Berges
Group picture at the Sparkasse
  • Building officials in the administrative district met in Beckum to discuss housing construction.

The event was chaired by Thomas Hammwöhner, Technical Councillor of the City of Ahaus. In addition to Rudolf Graaff from the NRW Association of Towns and Municipalities, the town of Beckum welcomed over 40 other guests from the entire administrative district.

Mayor Michael Gerdhenrich personally welcomed the participants from the fields of urban development and construction. In his view, it is important to exchange ideas among colleagues, "especially in times that are challenging for the construction sector and urban development". The city of Beckum provided an ideal setting for the dialogue in the premises of Sparkasse Beckum-Wadersloh:

Beckum is celebrating its 800th anniversary next year and has exciting urban development projects in the city centre as well as in the residential area. Last year, the market square in the city centre was completed, and this inner-city development is now being continued at the Kirchplatz. In addition, the development of the north of Beckum on the Renfert site and on Steinbruchallee is being driven forward.

In their presentation, Uwe Denkert, Head of the Urban Development Department, and Johannes Waldmüller, Head of the Urban Planning and Economic Development Department, shed light on these and other projects.

Following Rudolf Graaff's report on current developments, the main topic of the conference was housing: Speakers Oliver Niermann from the Verband der Wohnungs- und Immobilienwirtschaft Rheinland Westfalen e. V and Detlef Weigt, the head of the Stadtregion office, gave impulses on the topics of "The municipality as an investor in housing construction" and "Municipal housing development in the Münster city region" respectively. Here it became particularly clear that the municipalities in the entire administrative district face similar challenges, but in some cases choose different solutions. This shows how important regular dialogue is.

After the conference, everyone went on a guided tour of the city to see some of the projects presented beforehand. The next conference is to take place in the town of Dülmen in the district of Coesfeld.