Tentacle

Published 4 Mar, 2016

Vidzeme mobility and investment plan 2030: partners discuss opportunities of cooperation

Cesis, 17 February 2016

On 17 February 2016 the TENTacle partners Vidzeme Planning Region (Latvia) and Valga Town (Estonia) met in Cesis in order to discuss and launch the project case activities.

The aim of the TENTacle “Vidzeme Case” is to set up a Vidzeme mobility and investment plan 2030. One issue of the plan will be a strategy for triggering and sustaining growth impulses in rural and economically less developed regions by improving the access of residents and companies to urban centres and transport nodes on the North Sea-Baltic Corridor. Further Vidzeme intends to improve its position as a transit location for transport flows to Estonia, Russian and Belarussian markets.

To get a maximum of support and at a later stage a high acceptance of the results, Vidzeme Planning Region will work in close and active cooperation with the Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Latvia, State JSC ,,Latvian State Roads" as well as national and foreign institutions. Furthermore they will stay in close contact with the geographically nearest cooperation partner - Valga Town.

For regions located in close distance to one or several European core network corridors, the Vidzeme case has the potential to point the way how to gain benefits out of these.

During the meeting the planned activities, previous project experiences and Vidzeme’s vision of a future cooperation between both partners by developing the mobility plan were presented and discussed. The meeting was attended by Deputy Mayor of Valga, Enno Kase, project manager Marika Post from TENTacle partner Valga City Government by Rita Merca, project manager at Vidzeme Planning Region, and her colleagues.

,,I believe that the Tentacle project will bring new ideas and solutions to transport planning and mobility in Latvia , provide new knowledge and competence , improve a cooperation and integration between different administrative levels in traffic planning ", states Rita Merca.

The Vidzeme mobility and investment plan 2030 has four major aims:

Improving the functional access of the region’s territory to the North Sea-Baltic Corridor and to the Baltic Sea ports in order to use the convenient geographical position of the Vidzeme Region at a crossroad of inland transport flows to Estonia, Russia and Belarus.
Increasing the ability of providing integrated transport and land use planning solutions - with a better incorporation of the mobility needs of residents and companies - in order to optimize supply chains and decrease logistics costs of the local businesses.
Improving the inter-municipal cooperation and integration between different administrative levels (regional and local) in traffic planning and adding to it the international dimension (opportunities of a vicinity to the North Sea-Baltic Corridor).
Improving the exchange of information about ongoing planning processes, investments, real improvements and benefits of TEN-T core network corridors, through involvement of public and private stakeholders.

The plan will help municipalities, state institutions, existing businesses and potential investors with the transport and investment planning. During the meeting partners marked the first directions and ideas on how to build and co-ordinate cooperation of two neighboring countries - Latvia and Estonia. The next meeting is scheduled in Valga to discuss a concrete action plan for the project activities and to learn more about Valga and Valka development plans.