Cabinet to ease traffic congestion by fast tracking stalled projects

THE HAGUE – A different way of interpreting environmental regulations and a more relaxed approach when applications show minor problems, will go a long way to curtail the endless delays infrastructure projects have faced in the Netherlands in recent times. In the recent past, minor errors or oversights in an application could force major delays to project by forcing its applicant to start all over after fixing the minor problem. Certain procedural rules will also be simplified. The cabinet has identified thirty stalled bottlenecks in Dutch infrastructure that need to be fast tracked, mostly in the western, central and southern regions of the country. Frequently finding minor infractions in applications, environmental groups frustrated progress of such projects. Some projects were delayed for decades.