More money needs to be spent on the infrastructure in the Northern Netherlands. Several parties in the House of Representatives advocated this today. The cabinet recently distributed 7.5 billion euros for improving roads, rail and cycle paths, but hardly anything goes to the North.
The factions of CDA, PvdA, ChristenUnie, JA21 and BoerBurgerBeweging, among others, want this to change.
The parties share the strong criticism that the province of Drenthe expressed two weeks ago on the distribution of the pot of government money for better accessibility. Deputy Nelleke Vedelaar (PvdA) called the proposed distribution of the billions ‘disconcerting and bewildering’.
The North is ‘greatly underserved’, agrees CDA member Harry van der Molen. Only four percent of the total investments ends up in Groningen, Drenthe and Friesland, he emphasizes. He considers the fact that the cabinet points to the plans for the Lely line – the new fast rail link that runs to Groningen via Lelystad and Drachten and for which extra research funding will be available – insufficient: “With a bit of luck, it will only be there in ten years.”
PvdA member of parliament Habtamu de Hoop thinks the distribution of the money is ‘too unfair’. Stieneke van der Graaf of the ChristenUnie mainly focuses on another northern railway line: the Lower Saxony line, which must run from Groningen via Emmen to Enschede.
More attention should also be paid to the problem process between Zwolle and Meppel, the parties say. There is a bottleneck here, and train traffic is halted for an average of nine hours a week due to problems. If it gets stuck on this narrow rail link, the North is inaccessible by train.
The factions of JA21 and BBB want the cabinet to allocate an extra 75 million euros for this. The CDA is also in favor of greater investment in this section of the track.
Nevertheless, Minister Mark Harbers (VVD) of Transport, Public Works and Water Management and State Secretary Vivianne Heijnen (CDA) of Infrastructure defended their choice to make 65 percent of the investments in the Randstad and 35 percent outside it. Most homes will be built in the Randstad in the coming years, they emphasize. Those houses must be accessible by both car and train, which requires good roads and public transport connections. That is why a ‘major intervention’ is needed there, according to Harbers.
Nevertheless, State Secretary Heijnen had to admit that she ‘had to swallow, to put it mildly’, when she saw how much money is being allocated, for example, to extend the North-South metro line in Amsterdam. A total of 5.4 billion euros will be invested in the Amsterdam region, 4.1 billion of which will be paid by the government.