The renovation of the Coevorden-Bad Bentheim railway line has hardly started or Dutch and German regional authorities are already looking at the next step: what do the German-Dutch rail connection and the Lower Saxony Line soon mean for housing, economy and broad prosperity?
Chairman of the board Joachim Berends of the Bentheimer Eisenbahn sees great opportunities for the north on both sides of the border. But then the North must deliver when it comes to housing, warns State Secretary Chris Jansen, who last week also set the signal for the renovation for the Coevorden-Neuenhaus sub-trajectory.
“Actually, the rail connection from Coevorden to Bad Bentheim phase is zero of the Lower Saxony Line,” says Deputy Henk Jumelet. That of course sounds nice, but when the first ideas came to make the Dutch-German rail connection suitable for traveler transport, the word Lower Saxon Line did not yet exist at all. What drivers on the German and Dutch side of the border mean: look at the regional developments and travel options that are available when everything is ready.
Berends: “If you see which major economic developments are currently taking place and in the coming decades in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and around Groningen, then the northern region of Groningen and Drenthe and Grafschaft Bentheim can benefit from it and vice versa. That also applies to the villages and towns on the Lower Saxony Line. But then we have to do our homework.”
In addition to the construction of the Lower Saxony Line for Drenthe, that homework mainly consists of housing and driving the economy around the Lower Saxony Line. The northern provinces have had the Delta Plan for the North for years: 220,000 extra houses in exchange for the Lower Saxony Line, solving the bottleneck in the track at Meppel and construction of the Lelylijn. And the Lower Saxony Line of Governments and Business promise 45,000 homes along the Lower Saxony Line.
The cabinet will keep the north, says state secretary Chris Jansen of public transport resolutely. But until 2030, Drenthe will build 13,000 to a maximum of 16,200 homes, and they are not all around the future railway lines.
In Drenthe there are at least plans for a new residential area at Nieuw-Buinen and on the Groninger Kant in Stadskanaal. These also come around a new Stadskanaal-Zuid/Nieuw-Buinen station. At that station on the site of the former Philips factory, a campus must be built where students can work and learn. Then it concerns training for the manufacturing industry.
Together with the Lower Saxony Line and the station, this must ensure that students can stay in their own region and people can live or work from outside in Nieuw-Buinen and Stadskanaal. In Ter Apel, a new residential area must be built on the Drents-Groningen border with a new Ter Apel station.
The Lower Saxony Line will make it possible to live somewhere along the railway line and to work in Groningen, Emmen in Twente or in Germany. Apart from commuting and recreational use, according to Berends, the Coevorden – Bad Bentheim and the Lower Saxony Line are especially important for education. “Groningen has a large university campus, Emmen A Hogeschool, Nordhorn gets a campus. Twente has colleges and a university. And other secondary education and vocational education on both sides of the border will benefit from this.”
Just because of the new rail connection between Coevorden and Bad Bentheim, 1000 extra travelers are added, on top of the 2,500 people who are already using the train between Neuenhaus and Bad Bentheim. When the Lower Saxony Line is there, both railway lines are connected and it is expected that the number of travelers between Drenthe and Duistland can rise considerably.
The Lower Saxony Line itself accounts for 6,000 daily regional travelers, the Landsen Sakenlijn Foundation estimates. But that number could be higher, since on the Neuenhaus-Bentheim sub-trajectory that has been put into use since 2019 more use is made of the train than before. Not the expected 1,700, but 2,200 to 2,500 travelers make use of it per day.
State Secretary Jansen does believe in a small WirtschaftswundeR What Bentheimer Eisenbahn director Berends is talking about.