The Brainport region is growing like crazy. This is also noticeable kilometres away. Reason for the Eindhoven Metropolitan Region (MRE), a collaboration between the 21 municipalities in South-East Brabant, to join forces with Meierijstad, Venlo and Weert.
“We look together at how we can plan housing construction. We look at numbers and ask ourselves for whom we are building. We look at business locations. How much space is there in Limburg, how much in Meierijstad and how much in Eindhoven? And where would a company best be able to establish itself,” Eindhoven mayor Jeroen Dijsselbloem explains how such a collaboration normally goes.
Not an Eindhoven affair
The growth of Brainport and the challenges that come with it are no longer an Eindhoven affair. His colleague, mayor Antoin Scholten of Venlo, also notices this.
“Eindhoven is the economic engine of the Netherlands. That requires housing, work, knowledge workers and business parks. That just comes our way. We can’t forbid people to buy a house in Venlo, so we’d better make agreements with each other,” he tells Omroep Venlo.
Train connection
These agreements cover several areas. They include tackling the housing shortage, retaining companies for Brainport, and public transport. Dijsselbloem gives the train connection as a concrete example. “The railway from Eindhoven to Limburg simply needs to be tackled substantially. This involves very large amounts of money.”
The Eindhoven region and the ‘collaborating partners’ are lobbying for this together in The Hague. However, it is still unclear what this collaboration will look like. The municipal councils of the three municipalities will consider the preliminary plans after the summer.
Source: www.studio040.nl
Translated by Yawar Abbas
