A Giga-Infrastructure Vision

Nieuw
Doggerland

A new land rising from the North Sea, reconnecting Britain and Europe through an archipelago of islands built for energy, ecology, and the centuries ahead.

Ex Mare, Vita Nova: From the Sea, New Life

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Eight thousand years ago, Doggerland connected Britain to continental Europe. Rising seas swallowed it. Now, for the first time in human history, we have the engineering, the will, and the urgency to build it back.

The Project

A Land Bridge Reborn

Nieuw Doggerland is a binational infrastructure project to construct a chain of artificial archipelagos across the North Sea, connecting Immingham to IJmuiden via a central hub island on a shallow plateau south of the Hornsea wind farms, a corridor already host to some of the largest offshore wind farms on Earth. Hull, linked by the Humber Bridge, serves as the passenger gateway on the UK side.

Seven pillars carry the vision. Explore each below.

Concept render of island city with causeways across the North Sea
Hub island spire surrounded by offshore wind turbines

Energy

An offshore wind super-hub generating green hydrogen and interconnecting the British and European grids, building on the 3.6 GW Dogger Bank Wind Farm.

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Polder archipelago lagoons at sunset

Ecology

A constitutional no-take marine sanctuary with the largest native oyster reef restoration in European history: 50 million Ostrea edulis.

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Causeway crossing the North Sea

Transport

Stepping-stone causeways, bridges, and a road corridor linking Immingham to IJmuiden, re-establishing a land connection severed 8,000 years ago.

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Circular hub island city from the air

The Islands

A central hub island south of the Hornsea wind farms and radiating archipelago chains, raised with proven Dutch and British dredging methods.

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Eco-residential districts among wetlands and turbines

Living & Work

Eco-wetland districts, a new community, and the careers a binational province creates: life rising from the North Sea.

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Spire tower rising over the hub island city

Innovation

A marine science research station, aquaculture, eco-tourism, and an archaeology centre excavating the lost world beneath the waves.

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Starship rockets on an island launch complex

Spaceport

Europe’s Gateway to Orbit: a launch complex on the outermost island, with clear ocean ranges and no populated overflight.

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320km
Immingham to IJmuiden
3.6GW
Offshore wind already under construction
50m
Oysters to be restored
8,000yrs
Since Doggerland was last above water

The Ancient Land

8,000 Years in the Making

Doggerland was real. During the last Ice Age, a vast plain of tundra and marshland stretched across what is now the southern North Sea: home to mammoths, aurochs, and communities of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who fished its rivers, hunted its forests, and built lives in its wetlands.

"It was not an empty sea. It was a world... and it is still there, beneath the water, waiting."

Around 6,200 BCE, a catastrophic submarine landslide off Norway, the Storegga Slide, triggered a tsunami that swallowed the remaining lowlands. The people of Doggerland were among the first climate refugees in human history.

Today, trawlers regularly dredge up mammoth teeth, ancient peat, and Mesolithic tools from the sea floor. The Europe's Lost Frontiers project at the University of Bradford has mapped some 44,000 square kilometres of the submerged landscape using seismic survey data: its rivers, lakes, estuaries, hills, and coastlines. It is one of the largest unstudied archaeological landscapes in Europe.

Nieuw Doggerland will protect and excavate this heritage. The central hub island is planned for approximately 53.80°N, 2.09°E: on the drowned lowlands of ancient Doggerland, south of the bank where the heart of the ancient land once stood.

We name this project in honour of the people who lived there, the engineers who will build it, and the vision that connects them across eight millennia.

The full story, from the Garden of Eden years to the trawlers that still bring up its bones, is on the Doggerland page.

Map showing Doggerland from 16,000 BCE to present day, Smithsonian Institution
Doggerland, 16,000 BCE to the present day (Smithsonian Institution)

The Journey Ahead

A Phased Vision

0
2026
Vision Ignition

Founding prospectus, public launch, and assembling the Founding Circle of partners and supporters.

1
2027–2028
Coalition & Feasibility

Engaging TenneT, Boskalis, Port of Immingham, Port of IJmuiden. Detailed engineering studies and treaty negotiations.

2
2029–2033
Central Hub

Construction of the first island, Nieuw Haven, in the southern North Sea. Its harbour opens as the central North Sea's first working port, alongside energy infrastructure and marine sanctuary designation.

3
2034–2040
Archipelago & Connectivity

The island chains are built. Causeways, bridges, and roads connect Immingham to IJmuiden via the hub.

4
2040+
Full Province

Declaration of Nieuw Doggerland as an autonomous binational territory: a new jurisdiction for a new century.

Full roadmap →

Dispatches

News from the North Sea

The trailing suction hopper dredger Al-Idrisi under way in open water, suction pipes stowed along her yellow-craned hull

7 September 2026

Georgia Settles Who Owns the Harbour

Jan De Nul has two jumbo dredgers cutting the channels for Georgia's first deep-sea port, ten years after it was announced. Anaklia was never held up by engineering, but by the question of who owns the harbour. Nieuw Haven will meet that question too.

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Aerial view of Maraen Port of Nigg: a barge loaded with yellow offshore wind transition pieces under tow, more stacked on the quay, a jack-up vessel and fabrication sheds behind

25 August 2026

A Highland Port Takes On 180 Jobs for the Dogger Bank

Up to 180 skilled jobs are being created at a Highland port to pre-assemble turbines for the Dogger Bank Wind Farm. The bank has been an employer for years; the work is just landing 500 km from the bank itself, and only until the last turbine goes up.

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A hand working a brush across an encrusted lead ingot, the stamped maker's mark showing through the marine growth

22 August 2026

Three Ingots in the Hornsea Field

A bomb survey for Ørsted's Hornsea 3 wind farm found an unrecorded 17th-century wreck 120 km off Norfolk, carrying English lead for the Netherlands. Offshore construction is now this sea's most productive archaeology, and it is next door to us.

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All news →

Get Involved

Join the
Founding Circle

We are seeking infrastructure engineers, marine ecologists, energy experts, archaeologists, policymakers, and visionaries who believe the North Sea's future is above water.

Offshore energy island construction concept

Engineering & Industry

Dredging, offshore construction, renewable energy, and ports. If you build the future, we want to talk.

Sheltered archipelago lagoons at dusk

Science & Ecology

Marine biologists, archaeologists, climate scientists, and ocean engineers shaping what the sanctuary becomes.

Civic port city with cathedral at sunset

Policy & Investment

Governments, development banks, sovereign wealth funds, and foundations with appetite for generational impact.

Write to us

alastair@nieuwdoggerland.org

Nieuw Doggerland is convened by Nieuw Doggerland Foundation Limited, a non-profit company registered in England and Wales. How the Foundation is constituted.