PROJECT CONTEXT & GOAL
The municipality of Neerpelt has a lot of experience with participation. The participation team has already conducted many participatory and has established itself in Flanders as a flagship, in terms of participation.
In mid-2017, and with the context of Neerpelt merging with the municipality of Overpelt, the participation program manager wanted to add a digital support to the programs that were already ongoing, with the aim of launching an autonomous online participation platform.
Neerpelt chose for Createlli for the following reasons:
- a complete offering, capable to support a wide set of participation campaigns
- the participation expertise of the Createlli team
- our 'co-creation'-approach: when starting new projects we exchange about options and how to best support the campaign
- a tailor made support offering
"Wat I like a lot is that Createlli thinks with us and always searches for ways to improve a campaign" Greet Sleurs - Participation Neerpelt
THE PARTICIPATORY PROCESS
Firstly a campaign was developed in collaboration with the Createlli team for the participative process to change the names of the streets that, with the merging process, would be repeated in both municipalities. This was fully and warmly embraced by the citizens.
Secondly, there was the process of handing over the tool to the municipality of Neerpelt. This went hand in hand with a training session and a constant technical support and monitoring.
RESULTS
The platform has proved its flexibility: after 8 months, already 8 projects are live and new ones are in the pipeline.
The complementary services allowed Neerpelt to organise itself quickly and to launch successful campaigns for several themes:
Merger: a project choosing the new name to 54 streets, a project to gather ideas for the merging of the two municipalities, which goes hand in hand with 6 Inspiration evenings about the merger
New developments: 5 projects are about urban renovation or new developments. In these projects the municipality invites citizens and stakeholders (e.g. the children, teachers and parents for a projects about the renovation of a school) to give their ideas and to give feedback on plans of the urbanists and architects.
Youth and Children: Pelt (the new name of the merged Neerpelt ad Overpelt) uses the digital medium to reach their young population: with a survey about what social media they prefer to communicatie with their municipality, and with an entire new program about a child-friendly municipality.
Digital and physical participation: Pelt combines both digital and physical in all campaigns. Results of ons channel are communicated in the other, the ideas and feedback gathered in workshops are immediately shared online and citizens who we not present can hence add to it.
"Participelt.be offers clear added value - in our workshops we go in dialogue, we gather ideas and feedback. Everyone can comments and add to those on Participelt.be" Kris Classen - Communication - Overpelt
