Groningen and Drenthe spend on average more money per inhabitant than other provinces. This is according to research by the Central Bureau of Statistics.
Groningen in particular stands out nationally: the province spent an average of 727 euros per inhabitant last year. That is still well above the rest of the top 4 in the ranking that Statistics Netherlands will publish on Wednesday in the run-up to the parliamentary elections, namely Fryslân (591 euros) and Drenthe (577 euros), with Zeeland (579) in between.
Roads and transport in particular cost a lot of provincial money in the sparsely populated North
In general, Statistics Netherlands finds that the expenditure pattern in the provinces in the north and east is higher than in the west and south. Groningen even spends four times more than the ‘most economical’ province: Noord-Holland, which spent an average of 185 euros per inhabitant last year.
That is not very surprising, according to Statistics Netherlands. Thinner populated provinces not only have fewer inhabitants, but usually also have much higher costs. Extensive rural provinces such as Groningen and Drenthe, for example, manage considerably more kilometers of roads than those in the densely populated Randstad.
The northern provinces also spend much more money than average on public transport. While the major cities in the west of the country arrange a large part of urban and regional transport, Groningen and Drenthe are responsible for this together with the city of Groningen with their joint public transport agency Groningen-Drenthe.
Groningen puts 40 percent of the budget into ‘mobility’, in Drenthe ‘nature’ costs a lot of money
Partly because of this, according to Statistics Netherlands, Groningen spends five times more on public transport than, for example, North Holland. Road maintenance also costs provinces in the North relatively much more money than average. In Groningen, no less than 40 percent of the Groningen provincial budget is spent on ‘accessibility’: 227 million.
The specific character of provinces is also reflected in the household budgets in other policy areas. For example, Drenthe stands out when it comes to investments in nature management, with an average of 170 euros per inhabitant last year.
Groningen, Zeeland and Fryslân also complete the top 4 here, but at a considerable distance. Even Gelderland, as a province with the most protected nature areas, does not even come close, but the average there is also significantly lowered by the considerably higher population.