of an outlet centre in spite of the latest rejection. With a change to the state regional development programme in 2008 the establishment of a factory outlet centre in the tourist region of the Lüneburg Heath was finally granted. For the purposes of the town of Soltau, the town of Bad Fallingbostel and the municipality of Bispingen regional proceedings were begun. In February 2009 this process was concluded by the supreme state planning department (State Ministry of Economics) producing a positive outcome for Soltau and a negative one for its two competitors. Construction was due to start in 2010 despite Bispingen launching an appeal. It On 20 October 2004 an earthquake shook the region. It had a strength 4.5 on the Richter Scale and its epicentre was in Neuenkirchen. There had been a previous earthquake of strength 4 with an epicentre in Soltau on 2 June 1977. Since the beginning of 2005 there have been discussions about a memorial of eight representative steles from the Berlin Holocaust Memorial for "all victims of the Nazi dictatorship". However an internet survey by the newspaper, the Böhme-Zeitung showed that a majority of those who responded were against the memorial. This caused a furore nationally and gave those in favour of a memorial reason to accuse the opponents of having Nazi sentiments. Nevertheless, plans to erect the monument in central locations such as immediately in front of the station could not be carried out. This monument appeared from autumn 2006 to March 2007 in the vicinity of the remote site of the killings in the forest of Sibirien (today a hospital stands on the exact spot). The massive opposition from long-time residents of Soltau is frequently put down by them to the lack of commemoration of the many civilian and military victims from their own ranks, because they are not obviously included in the memorial. In March 2007 a concept for the transformation of the town centre was proposed. The Schaper Market, which had been built in the 1970s and lain empty since 2004, a footbridge (locally called the Fenner-Kringel) and a multi-storey car park were demolished in 2008 and the theatre moved to Hagen, so that a new building could be built with a total sales floor of about . The new shopping centre was opened in March 2009. Demographics The oldest list of townsfolk in the town book of 1452 enumerates 42