Provinces
Competent authority for provincial infrastructure, nature and spatial planning.
- Innovation
Standardising the control systems of bridges and locks: uniform technology, local communities
Rijkswaterstaat is moving away from bespoke software for each bridge or lock and building a modular technical architecture, with the Grevelingen lock as its testing ground. Sound asset management, but it also changes who picks up the phone when a bridge fails to open.
Read more → - Policy
The grid congestion crisis act removes consultation steps, not the conversation with the community
The Dutch government wants crisis legislation to halve lead times for grid expansion: a single tier of appeal, fewer permits, no EIA screening for underground cables. We support the direction, but removing formal consultation steps means stakeholder work at the front end has to get stronger, not weaker. Otherwise resistance simply moves from the courtroom to the construction site.
Read more → - Policy
Permit-free is not built: why the nitrogen package does not replace the environmental work
The government wants to scrap the permit requirement for activities with low nitrogen deposition through an arithmetic floor. That is good news for small projects. But for the major infrastructure agenda, the package shifts the bottleneck; it does not resolve it.
Read more → - Analysis
Drinking water is becoming the next grid congestion, and the sector treats it as a permitting problem
All ten Dutch drinking water companies need extra extraction capacity before 2030, but new sources are not materialising. The sector points to slow permitting. We argue: the real bottleneck is the absence of stakeholder and environmental management around the extraction sites.
Read more → - Policy
Saving for the Lelylijn: what regional co-financing means for stakeholder and environmental management
Northern Netherlands has chosen its own Lelylijn Regional Savings Fund of €400 million per year. This shifts more than just financing: governance relationships and the role of stakeholder and environmental management also move with it.
Read more → - Policy
At the tipping point: what the environmental services robustness deadline means for infrastructure projects
By 1 April 2026, all 28 Dutch environmental services must meet the robustness criteria for licensing, inspection and enforcement. Many will not. This has direct consequences for permitting processes in infrastructure projects, and for the organisations that depend on them.
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