The new sea lock in IJmuiden will not be named after the well-known sign language interpreter Irma Sluis. The municipality of Velsen has started a campaign together with Rijkswaterstaat and says it will go for an internationally useful name on Wednesday.
Rijkswaterstaat says that a frequent entry among the five thousand responses was the name of Irma Sluis, but “unfortunately that name cannot be it”.
To be able to name the lock after someone, that person must have died for at least ten years. “unless it is a member of the royal family,” said one of the councilors involved.
A selection is now being made of the top hundred names from the entries, by the end of this year we will know what the largest sea lock in the world will be called. The winner of the campaign can be present at the opening in 2022.
Irma Sluis became nationally known for her presence at the press conferences of Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Minister Hugo de Jonge (Public Health) about the corona measures. Sluis stood next to the two as a sign language interpreter.
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