Following this, the council members voted in favor of taking out a 34 million euro loan from the state-owned N-Bank and the project, which is scheduled to run for several years, with 32 votes in favour, 7 against and 4 abstentions.

In a council resolution dated January 25, 2012 (draft resolution 0221/16), the committee had already spoken out in favor of converting Watenstedt into an industrial area. This was based on a report by an economic research institute, which described the project and explained the individual conversion scenarios and cost components in more detail.

From the outset, the acquisition of funding was a particular challenge for the city of Salzgitter.

Following intensive discussions with the state of Lower Saxony and the N-Bank, it became clear that no EU funding in the form of grants could be made available in the current funding period until 2021.

Due to the high economic significance of the project for the further development of the third largest industrial location in Lower Saxony, the state has announced its intention to support the project in the form of low-interest loans with fixed interest rates via N-Bank and KfW.

However, a condition for the project will be that the City of Salzgitter receives assurances from the municipal supervisory authority, the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior, that the loans will not give rise to any objections from the municipal supervisory authority when approving the future budgets of the City of Salzgitter.

Specific information on the "Watenstedt" project can be found below.