Management of public green spaces addressed

Feral public gardens, poor-quality trees and damaged roadsides; these are all issues on Venlo's business parks. Lidy Rutten, as park manager, reported them several times to the Venlo municipality in recent years. "There no immediate action was taken," she said.

This caused frustrations, resulting in the demise of several working groups of Entrepreneurial Venlo. "There was not properly collaborated," said Hans Schreurs, Chairman of the working group 'Managing Public Green Entrepreneurial Venlo'. "At the new start, we sat down with the municipality and made it clear that working together is necessary to move forward." With this approach and some new members, a new committee was born. Both parties had the same objective: to improve maintenance and make business parks more sustainable. "It was important that the traditional culture within the Venlo municipality needed to become more open. This has worked out well thanks in part to Rutten and Verhaegh's initiative."

The work field in
Lidy Rutten and Marco Verhaegh together visited all 20 Venlo business parks in April. "Such an action had never been carried out before, it was a real revelation for both parties," says Rutten. "Verhaegh was shocked at several locations. The doesn't look like it," was his first reaction. The felt great to get that confirmation as Entrepreneurial Venlo; finally the municipality understood what we meant."

Mapping
According to Verhaegh, there are several major factors that have prevented the municipality from keeping up with the greenery in business parks in recent years. "Understaffing is one of them," he says. "Fortunately, the green space department has had more colleagues since the end of last year, because green space is becoming an increasingly important function for the municipality. Our public space consists largely of green elements. These form the daily backdrop for our citizens and businesses. At a well-kept green public space is more pleasant to live, work and play in." In addition, Verhaegh found out through the field research that the management system is not completely up-to-date. "As public space is subject to change, it is important to keep this data up to date in a system. So we as Venlo municipality, as well as the contractors working for us, know exactly where they should or should not carry out work."

An important next step that the Venlo municipality is currently actively working on is updating the digital management system and ensuring that contractors can start working with this system. "It is a process that is not settled overnight. The is essential for the day-to-day management and maintenance of our public spaces. Our supervisors play an important role in this. She direct the contractor and also answer various reports from citizens or businesses."

Notification
Rutten urges businesses to make a report when there is something wrong with the greenery in their area. "Perhaps confidence has weakened because businesses have reported problems on occasion, but nothing has been done. Therefore, the municipality hopes to regain trust, because with our new strategy, we hope the whole approach will change."

According to Scheurs, the municipality is often unfairly blamed when greenery in public areas is not maintained. "It area can also belong to the Department of Public Works, Water Board, the Province or the Limburg Landscape. Therefore, we need to map the boundaries well, so that the parties know for which area they are responsible and can maintain the area."

Outsourcing
From the Sustainable Business Parks Foundation, projects will be realised in the coming years. At these projects the municipality does not coordinate, but gives the executing parties preconditions," says Verhaegh. "Of course, we want to know which plant species will be used, how they will deal with the water-storage capacity of wadis or ponds and with the incorporation of existing trees. Well we find it important that (landscaping) companies can bring their own creativity and expertise to the plans." Currently, a plan is ready for making Spikweien business park in Lomm more sustainable. "A agency made a plan and we gave preconditions. We want the site to be sustainable, because when the maintenance comes to an end, we as a municipality want to be able to take the site back into management without the trees decaying and the planting has been neglected." According to Verhaegh, in making business parks sustainable, it is important to invest in good land. "That is what we are trying to give direction to. We recently held an interview at the city office where the tendering parties could ask questions at the table. By talking about it together, you get interaction. That leads to a good end result in my opinion."

'Where before only traditional maintenance was carried out, we are now going to green the business parks, make them more sustainable and beautify them'

Anti-pollution
"If business parks look neater, they will also be less likely to be littered," Schreurs argues. "After all, clutter attracts clutter." Rutten agrees. "Drivers are thus less likely to tend to throw away rubbish outside than when the ground has been littered." The working group recently started a project at Faunalaan, where there is a lot of sprawl. A part has been addressed and refurbished. So The grass has been cut and bushes removed. "It is a world of difference between the treated and non-treated area. "Our The goal is that eventually all sprawl at business parks will disappear and it will look so neat everywhere," says Rutten. All members of the Public Green Space Management Working Group Entrepreneurial Venlo are happy with this new intensive cooperation and all the projects that came out of it. Schreurs: "Whereas before only the municipality did traditional maintenance, now - with third parties - we are going to green the business parks, make them more sustainable and beautify them. The becomes a totally different experience."

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