By promising that the North wants to contribute substantially to the Lely Line, it is responding to the advice of special envoy Klaas Knot. Earlier this year, he presented his advice on the financing of the Lely Line. In it he proposes that the government reserve four hundred million euros annually for 25 years.
This would amount to approximately three quarters of the required investment of an estimated 14.5 billion euros. According to him, the remaining ten percent should come from alternative financing, including contributions from regional governments and possibly European subsidies.
The contribution from the region, approximately forty million euros per year according to the advice, is seen as crucial for the support in The Hague. “If you ask for commitment from the House of Representatives for the realization of the Lely Line, it will help enormously if the region itself is prepared to release resources,” says Knot.
The northern authorities met on Wednesday afternoon at the provincial government building in Groningen to hear Knot’s story. They have now also concluded: we must show The Hague in real terms that we really want this. However, it is not certain whether the region can actually save forty million euros per year for 25 years.
“The honest answer is that we are now investigating this,” says King’s Commissioner (CdK) René Paas, chairman of the Lelylijn steering group.
“No one just has forty million on the shelf every year. But we think this project is so important that we are seriously looking at what is possible.” The distribution key will also be examined. Which province pays how much? And which municipalities can contribute?
The forty million, together with four hundred million from the government, must be put into a separate savings fund. According to Knot, the government can support this investment.
“The Dutch economy is in principle large enough to bear such an amount,” said Knot. “But the budget pressure is high and there are many other claims on the national budget. That is precisely why it is important to set the money aside in a fund, so that it really remains available for this project.”
Knot warns against the so-called ‘cuckoo chick effect’, in which large projects crowd out other investments. That is why he advocates a separate fund for the Lely Line, which the government and the region cannot simply access. “That is the best guarantee that the money is used for what it is intended.”
The Northern Netherlands hopes that, with the gesture to invest in the Lely line, it will be back on the map in The Hague. In the Rutte IV cabinet, three billion euros were reserved for the construction of the line, but last year it was announced that a large part of this money would be used for the construction of the Lower Saxony line. The Lely line could start again from zero.
“We are now going to investigate how we can make our contribution,” says Paas. “And we ask The Hague to do the same at the same time. This is like crossing the road.”
Next Wednesday, Knot will explain his advice during a technical briefing of the standing parliamentary committee on Infrastructure and Water Management. It is expected that the Lely Line will be placed on the agenda of the House the following week. It will then become clear which parties are in favor of this and, more importantly, whether coalition parties want to embrace the proposal of a savings fund.
“I think it is important that MPs hear: something is being asked of them, but the region is also ready,” says Knot. Paas: “We operate in a complicated political playing field, but one thing is clear: it will not be our fault.”