EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network

PURE North Sea

Introduction

PURE North Sea is an EU project, which started in 2002 and lasted for four years. Led by the Province of Groningen, partners from England, Sweden and the Netherlands set up and realised a great number of projects in those four years.

Problem

PURE North Sea is a European project that shows how an improvement in water management may make an urban-rural fringe zone more attractive, more sustainable and safer.

Description

In those projects the partners tried out various ways of area development, water management and participation. In total, the PURE Partners made fifteen different plans. These range from master plans, water structure plans, water system and/or river restoration projects and water storage plans to spatial planning designs. Each partner carried out several plans. The results were mutually exchanged. On the basis of this knowledge and these experiences the PURE Partners jointly developed the “Water Connects” approach.

Approach

The parties that cooperate in the European PURE Project have devised an approach which is new both to the authorities, to the residents and to the specialists. The first step is that at an early stage the authorities will look for cooperation with the stakeholders in an area, such as:

residents;
landowners;
businesses;
the agricultural sector;
nature conservation societies;
the recreation sector;
and executive specialists.

All these people can then separately indicate what values they assign to their environment (and water). The second step is making a joint vision of the development of an area. This vision must motivate stakeholders, businesses, authorities and residents to invest in the area. At the third step it is time for the execution of the plans. Characteristic of this step is that the final result is not always a foregone conclusion. Learning experiences from one project are consciously and deliberately taken into account when carrying out a following project. New developments, which constantly occur, are taken into account as well for like time the world keeps changing.

Results

The “Water Connects” approach leads to safe, attractive and appreciated urban-rural fringe zones of a higher, sustainable spatial quality.
Because several stakeholders have cooperated and personally invested in the area the plans are long-lived ones.
Residents and stakeholders have also got a greater sense of responsibility because they took part in the deliberations about solutions for the area. As a result of this the sense of safety from floods is no longer exclusively dependent on acts by the authorities.
Fewer floods will occur because the water has received more room to adapt to circumstances. In this way a new living environment comes about with lots of water and opportunities for recreation and nature.
Water is now employed as a characteristic quality of an area. Space is utilised more effectively, resulting in higher land and housing prices.

The different guidebooks designed by the PURE project can be found on our web site (see “links”).

Beneficiaries

The North Sea area: Groningen, Deventer, Goteborg and the North East of the United Kingdom.

Resources used

Funding:
ERDF                5.778.918
By partners:      5.778.918
Total funding:   11.557.836

EU involvement

The project is partially funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Contact info

PURE Secretariat

Project start date

26/09/2002

Links

The PURE North Sea project The Province of Groningen, the lead partner (in Dutch)PURE: water connects PURE: multifunctionality PURE: water system restoration PURE: participation PURE: planning with water PURE: check

Document type

case

Themes

Urban Policy > Urban environment > Urban renewal

Keywords

Waterside development