The accessibility of the city of Rotterdam and the wider region is crucially important for the economy. Alongside the largest port in Europe, the Rotterdam region also hosts an enormous horticultural cluster, Greenport West Holland. Therefore the construction of the Blankenburg Connection is necessary to enable continued accessibility to this region and to stimulate economic growth in the area.
Various studies have identified a number of urgent bottlenecks which will arise in the area after 2020 and these will be at the expense of the liveability and economic activity in the region, for example traffic jams in the Benelux tunnel area. The Blankenburg Connection will relieve this problem by offering motorists an alternative to 'crossing' the Scheur/Nieuwe Waterweg.
Rijkswaterstaat (The Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management of the Netherlands) awarded the Public-Private Partnership project for the Blankenburg Connection to the BAAK Consortium, which consists of DEME, Ballast Nedam and Macquarie Capital. The project includes the design, build, finance and maintenance for a period of 20 years using existing and new infrastructure.
