Structure Plan for the Southern IJsselmeer Polders

Abstract

The Structure Plan for South Flevoland and Markerwaard Polders,¹ published in February 1961, shows a change in the planning objectives for the IJsselmeer area as a whole: the new lands are now viewed not, as previously, in a limited agricultural and regional context but in a national one. The Plan recognizes that while all the new Polders constitute a regional unity in themselves, the key situation they occupy in the very heart of the Netherlands calls for their integration not only with the surrounding ‘old’ land but also with the country as a whole. Its proposals are broadly based with a view to accommodating future changes in the national social and economic pattern inherent in the Randstad concept. Changes of this kind cannot be accurately foreseen. Hence the Plan postulates a structural framework that can be clad in detail as the needs arise: it offers a clear sense of direction but imposes no set pattern for the particular treatment of component parts. This is indeed rational in view of the fact that the phased dates for occupation of South Flevoland and Markerwaard are 1970–5 and 1980 respectively. The Plan (57) contains proposals under five headings: (1) integrating the Polders with the surrounding countryside; (2) communications network; (3) structural division of the Polders; (4) water conservation; (5) landscape.