Plans to merge Noord-Holland, Utrecht and Flevoland into a single, super province, appear to have flopped now that opposition parties say they will not support the initiative in the senate.

The government does not have a majority in the upper house of parliament and was in talks with the D66 Liberals and left-wing greens GroenLinks on working out a compromise pact.

However, Labour leader Diederik Samsom said after the talks failed that the differences between the two parties were too wide. The cabinet will want to press ahead with the initiative but there is ‘no political support for it’, he said.

The aim of the merger is to boost efficiency and cut costs at a provincial government level, but there is widespread opposition to the plan, not least from within the provinces themselves.

At a news conference in April, the three king’s commissioners in the provinces said they were unanimously opposed to this ‘glued together merger without vision’.