Thinking and participating with the municipality

The municipality of Apeldoorn works every day to create a pleasant, safe and future-proof living environment. Residents play an important role in many of these developments. Your ideas, experiences and knowledge of your neighbourhood help us to improve our plans. That is why we involve residents in various ways in the development and implementation of policy.

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Early information

When it comes to new projects or policy development, we inform residents as early as possible about what is going to happen. We do this through:

  • letters and emails to local residents
  • reports in the local media and on our website
  • information evenings or drop-in sessions
  • project pages on our website
  • the council’s social media channels

This way, you’ll know in good time what’s going on in your neighbourhood or local area, or you can get involved in policy-making for the whole municipality

Contributing to the discussion and putting forward ideas

We believe it is important for residents to be able to put forward ideas and contribute their thoughts. That is why we organise, amongst other things:

  • meetings and workshops, in which residents actively contribute their ideas
  • online surveys and polls
  • discussions with residents’ groups and neighbourhood councils, for example via the wellness diaries involving door-to-door surveys conducted at neighbourhood level
  • pilot projects, in which we test new solutions with local residents

Your insights help us to ensure that our plans are better aligned with reality.

Getting involved in the implementation

In some projects, residents can actually get involved in the implementation. For example, in:

  • designing green spaces or play areas together
  • setting up neighbourhood initiatives
  • take part in pilot projects in public spaces

Where possible, the local authority provides support in the form of expertise, materials or grants for residents’ initiatives.

More information

Formal public consultation

For major projects and policy plans, the following applies: formal consultation procedure. This means that you:

The local council will take all responses into account before reaching a decision.

Transparent feedback

We believe it is important to provide clear feedback on what we do with the feedback we receive. That is why we are sharing:

  • summaries of residents’ contributions
  • summaries of the choices made and the reasons behind them
  • updates on the progress of the project

This shows you how your contribution has helped shape the final result.