On May 20th, Speak Up hosted a webinar on Hoogkerk’s (Netherlands) innovative participatory budgeting method. Through community dialogues and voting, this initiative enables citizens to have a say on some of the village’s budgeting expenses, directly responding to their needs. This event featured Marian Hegeman (Sterk Hoogkerk project leader) and Peter Wijnsma (Municipality of Groningen) to present the budgeting method and its accomplishments. We also had the chance to hear directly from two of Hoogkerk residents, who shared their personal experiences in initiating a budgeting project: Ceciel Nieuwenhout, as well as a member of the Moluccan community.
This successful event brought together 40 participants, and is now available to rewatch in full on our website.
The Background: The town of Hoogkerk
Participatory budgeting is a democratic process that empowers community members to directly decide how a portion of a public budget is spent. It allows citizens to propose, discuss, and vote on initiatives that will benefit their community, ensuring that budgeting decisions align with the needs and priorities of those most impacted.
Hoogkerk is a village located within the municipality of Groningen. Hoogkerk has its own distrinctive character and strong community feel. The town and neighbourhood council had too many ideas to fit the regular paths of citizen engagement, and asked the municipality for a more ambitious plan. In 2021, a group of passionate citizens and municipal council members traveled to Antwerp to explore the potential for participatory budgeting in their own neighbourhood—and they succeeded.
Marian and Peter’s work with Sterk Hoogkerk highlights an exemplary and innovative method, which provides residents with greater influence and agency in municipal decision-making.
The method: Participatory Budgeting
The first edition of this project was led in 2022, with the municipality of Groningen granting at least 10 years for its implementation. Since then, 16 resident projects have already been selected and implemented within the village. In 5 clear steps, residents regularly discuss and vote on the use of the 300.000€ budget allocated by the municipality.
First, residents select five out of the seventeen available themes (e.g. safety, sustainability, culture) over which to divide the budget. During step 2, ideas fitting the five selected themes are submitted. Follows a research phase (step 3), during which the municipality examines how these ideas can be implemented. Step four enables citizens to vote on their preferred idea within each theme, the results of which indicate to the municipality which ideas to start implementing (step 5).
Examples of Selected Projects
Ceciel Nieuwenhout is one of the many residents who successfully saw her submitted idea come to fruition. As a resident of Hoogkerk and mother, she noticed the common struggle for parents of young children who went for a dip in the Ruskenveense lake: the lack of public bathrooms. After submitting the idea, discussing implementation issues (e.g. maintenance), and resident voting, her idea has been implemented with bathrooms now being available for all swimmers at the lake.
Another success story is that of the redevelopment of a square in the Moluccan neighbourhood. Having noticed the many tripping hazards caused by cracked and uneven pavements, particularly dangerous for children and the elderly, residents commonly selected this idea. Currently in the implementation phase, the square will be rebuilt in order to improve safety for all. The square in its updated form would also improve community enhancement and social interaction.
Want to know more about the budgeting project and various lessons learned?
You can download the full presentation below.