7 November 2007

UTRECHT – The GroenLinks faction in the Utrecht city council wants the municipality to put a stop to the proliferation of heated terraces in the city. The party has the impression that more and more establishments are placing the mushroom-shaped space heaters on their terraces during the winter months. These heaters are harmful for the environment because they release CO2, the green-left party says.

"Heating the outdoors does not fit in with the municipality's policy to be climate neutral by 2030 at the latest," a spokesperson for the party said on Wednesday.

GroenLinks thinks that more terrace heaters will appear because of the pending smoking ban in the catering industry in 2008. "More and more café owners will set up heated terraces because they don't want to leave their customers in the cold."

The Utrecht branch of catering sector association Horeca Nederland is fiercely opposed to GroenLinks's idea. "It is entirely unclear what the effects of the smoking ban will be on the catering industry. We sympathise with the idea, but in the end it too is about money."

German research shows that the average mushroom-shaped outdoor space heater emits 3.5 kg of carbon dioxide an hour. That is the same as a car emits in a 25-km journey.

[Copyright Expatica News + ANP 2007]

Subject: Dutch news