WILLEMSTAD - Chesley Rach is the new interim director of Urban Planning (ROP) within the Ministry of Traffic, Transport and Urban Planning (VVRP).

Rach was appointed on 1 April. He will be responsible for policy within ROP and serve the department until the end of 2019. He will also be involved in the search for a new permanent director.

Rach is an urban engineer and studied at the Delft University of Technology. He has previously worked for ten years at the Department of Spatial Planning and Housing (DROV) as head of the Department of Spatial Planning. He then also acted as interim director. From 1987 he worked as a planner in the Netherlands for thirty years. He was also district secretary of the municipality of Amsterdam in Southeast. There he led various processes that ROP is now also working on together with the government accountant bureau (SOAB).