It’s great that you want to support our Honey Highway initiative. That you want to commit to making land available in your municipality, that wildflowers are sown there. Honey Highway is a citizens’ initiative that is always supported by big government bodies; Rijkswaterstaat, ProRail, Provinces, Water Boards. And big companies like Dutch Flower Group and Schiphol initiate projects that are now being implemented. Incredibly good and important that you get involved in your municipality to roll out this citizens’ initiative, more kilometres of wildflowers. These are the steps:
First step is to inventory pathways; which verges, corners of land are suitable. Roadsides along cycle paths or fallow land are also suitable for wildflowers.
Make a list of 10 locations: a verge should be at least 2 metres wide. The wider the better. By default, our sections have an area from 10,000 m2 (this may also be 2 or 3 sites). But for a municipality, it may also be a total of 5,000 m2. If there is a national road verge to be rebuilt in your area, let us know and we will go after the project manager of Rijkswaterstaat to apply the Highway concept.
Take photos of these 10 locations. Nice is to put them in a document with (a map and) dimensions. Include who owns each verge or corner of land. So 10,000 m2 or 5,000 m2 per municipality (or landowner, entrepreneur).
Approach the person in charge of the municipality, an alderman. Or in a large municipality, the green manager himself has budget to decide. Say the following: “Very good and important is the policy you have formulated for the municipality ….
But we citizens expect more. This Honey Highway project is what we want as an example/proof. There is a demand for more projects/intensified implementation of your policies.”
If you would like a sample email sent on behalf of 2 entrepreneurs to the municipality of Delft including locations we will send this sample to you.
If you get a positive response, ask us for an offer presentation.
If you get a negative response, say you disagree and give arguments. Place an appeal in the local paper: who also wants more wildflowers in verges and parks?
Or go civilly disobedient and sow wildflowers. Do this first with our organic annual wildflowers, which come up on almost any soil type, 11 varieties. Do this in an area of 500m2.
Or during a public event, give the municipality a gift on behalf of citizens: ‘500m2 of wild perennial flowers for the bees in a certain park or verge’. Then they can’t ignore it. We support you in this.
Or ask an entrepreneur/landowner if he does this to show that the solution must come from entrepreneurs. Often an entrepreneur is willing to do this because he himself is also ‘stuck’ with something at the municipality. Municipalities are rewarded in money from the state if they support a citizens’ initiative. Municipalities do not know what that is and how to do it. With Honey Highway as a citizens’ initiative, municipalities are positively familiar.
Find the local journalist, local/regional newspaper and post a piece that there are far too few flowers and too much green grass and that you would like to do something about it with fellow residents. Name examples where this has been done by Honey Highway civic initiative and municipality: A4 Delft-Schiedam, N14 municipality of The Hague, A2 municipality of Utrecht.
