Environment minister Jacqueline Cramer has drawn up a list of nine so-called motorway panoramas – views of traditional Dutch landscapes – where housing, commercial development and sound walls are to be banned.

The Volkskrant reports that the A7 and A8 offer the most pleasure for car passengers – up to 150 seconds of rich pasture criss-crossed by ditches and dotted with traditional farms.
The shortest stretch, the paper says, is on the A28 between Groningen and Limmen, where between six and 40 seconds-worth of scenery is to be protected.