Have your say - submit an opinion
The board of the water authority regularly takes decisions on plans, projects, regulations, or permits. We prepare these decisions carefully. As a result, the board often makes some decisions available for inspection before taking a final decision. This is called a draft decision. It is possible to respond to a draft decision, and that is called submitting an opinion.
Who can submit an opinion?
Anyone can respond to a draft decision. The water authority officially publishes draft decisions in the Waterschapsblad (Water Authority Journal). You can find our announcements on the Announcements (Dutch only) page.
What do you need?
In your opinion, you state:
- Your name, address, and preferably also your phone number and email address;
- A description of the draft decision to which your opinion relates;
- And the content of your opinion.
You have six weeks to submit your opinion. This period begins on the day on which the draft decision is made available for inspection. You can find this date in the Waterschapsblad that contains the announcement of the draft decision. For some plans, there is a shorter period in which you can respond. This will also be stated in the announcement.
How does it work?
You can submit your opinion in writing:
The Executive Board of the Noorderzijlvest Water Authority
Postbus 18
9700 AA Groningen
You can also submit your opinion verbally. The announcement states who you can contact regarding the draft decision.
How does the procedure work?
- We respond to all opinions submitted regarding a draft decision in a response memorandum. In this memorandum, we indicate whether we will amend the draft decision in response to the opinion.
- If you have submitted an opinion, you will receive personal notification of the final decision. You will also receive a response letter explaining what we have done with your opinion.
- We will publish the response memorandum together with the submitted opinions. We will omit your name and address details.
- We will also publish final decisions on officielebekendmakingen.nl. We will make the response memorandum available for inspection when the final decision is published.
Do you disagree with the response to your opinion?
In many cases, you can appeal against the final decision to the administrative court. If this is the case, we will state this in the decision. An interested party who has not submitted an opinion cannot appeal to the administrative court, unless this cannot reasonably be blamed on them.