Citizens’ Assembly on city planning and urban development

In June 2022, Næstved City Council adopted a vision that sets the direction for the municipality’s work. The next step is to incorporate it into decisions, operations and development in the municipality. The politicians want the citizens’ help with this, which is why they have decided to create a Citizens’ Assembly. Initially, the vision and the results from the Citizens’ Assembly will form the basis for the municipal planning strategy, which will be named the Næstved Strategy. It is a plan for the development of the municipality for the next 12 years. The vision is the municipality’s ambitions for development in the coming years. It subsequently becomes a municipal planning strategy, which then becomes actual plans, and thus the future of the municipality. Næstved Municipality’s vision is called Mærk Næstved (Feel Næstved) and consists of three elements – children and young people, urban development and sustainable business.

The Citizens’ Assembly has been asked to work on the basis of the following problem statement: “We need your help to envision how we together create a sustainable Næstved for our young people, the city and the business community”

Initially, the vision and the results from the citizens’ assembly will form the basis for the municipal planning strategy, which will be called the Næstved Strategy, a plan for the municipality’s development over the next 12 years. By initiating the citizens’ assembly, the city council has given a representative sample of the municipality’s citizens the opportunity to directly influence how the strategy should be concretized. Based on a number of expert presentations and their diverse everyday perspectives, the participants of the citizens’ assembly will prepare recommendations for the city council.

The members of the citizens’ assembly will meet for 5 full days (Saturdays/Sundays) from February 2023 to May 2023. Together they will make recommendations for Næstved Municipality’s democratic urban development. The Citizens’ Assembly has an expert group that will continuously contribute to the members’ learning process with the help of experts and stakeholders. Using the OECD’s deliberative principles, citizens are presented with knowledge about both the municipality and relevant themes. Together, the members will come up with their final recommendations to Næstved Municipality for use in the further political process and the municipal planning strategy.

We Do Democracy is the third-party secretariat for the citizens’ assembly and is thus responsible for the project’s design, management, facilitation, evaluation, and reporting.

The Citizens’ Assembly has drawn up 6 overall recommendations, with a number of associated concrete initiatives. In the recommendation report, you can also read much more about the citizen assembly’s process, methods, composition of citizens, etc. Read the full recommendation report here

In general, there has been a high level of satisfaction with the citizen assembly. You can read the evaluation of the citizen assembly here