Positive
Project advancing - milestone achieved
High Impact
Major milestone or critical setback
On 18 December 2009, the Dutch State Secretary for Transport, Public Works and Water Management (Verkeer en Waterstaat) granted Eneco New Energy B.V. — later renamed Q10 Offshore Wind B.V. — a permit under the Wet beheer rijkswaterstaatswerken (Wbr) for the construction, maintenance and removal of the Q10 offshore wind turbine park (later renamed Luchterduinen) and the associated cable infrastructure, located in the Dutch Exclusive Economic Zone of the North Sea approximately 23 km off Noordwijk. This Wbr permit is the planning-consent-equivalent decision for the project under the pre-2015 Dutch offshore wind regime. It was issued by Rijkswaterstaat Directie Noordzee acting for the State Secretary, and was based on an environmental impact assessment (MER) plus location-specific habitat appropriate assessment. Permit conditions required no pile driving between 1 January and 1 July to protect fish larvae transport to Natura 2000 areas (Waddenzee, Voordelta and Noordzeekustzone), restricted concurrent pile-driving to one wind farm per construction season in Dutch waters, and obliged the developer to run a Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (MEP). The permit decision was later upheld by the Rotterdam district court (12 May 2011) and the Council of State (Raad van State, 23 May 2012, ECLI:NL:RVS:2012:BW6349) on appeal by the Productschap Vis fisheries body.