Cabinet earmarks €355 million for access to new housing areas

The Dutch cabinet is making €355 million available to improve access to four large national housing areas: Alkmaar, Apeldoorn, Helmond and Hengelo/Enschede.

The details:

• The four areas were designated as nationally large-scale housing areas in 2025.
• Together they will get almost 30,000 homes.
• Municipalities can spend the money on roads, cycle paths or public transport to connect the new neighbourhoods.

The big picture: The cabinet is putting an extra €18 billion into maintenance and renewal of roads, bridges, rail and water works. It said it weighed the importance of housing heavily in its mobility choices. The aim is to build more homes, faster and better.

What changes: Existing agreements on opening up housing areas stay in place. The cabinet also weighed maintenance against new projects. It said a number of projects will be paused because of a lack of funding or because they cannot be carried out at present.

What is next: This autumn, the cabinet will designate five new nationally large-scale housing locations in the Nota Ruimte (national spatial strategy), each with thousands of new homes. It said it is choosing places where people can work near where they live, which means less investment in accessibility is needed.