Philip Meersman MR OpenVLD Jette Plaats 23 lijst 6 web
Jette has so much to offer, together we can ensure that our beautiful municipality reaches its full potential. Our municipality has a unique mix of rural charm and urban dynamism, with a wealth of cultural, tourist and archaeological gems. But we are not doing enough to play these assets.
International studies show that sustainable and ecological tourism can not only boost our local economy, but also create more employment and a stronger sense of community. With an “integrated tourism action plan” I want to put Jette on the map as an example of sustainable development.
Jette has a unique combination of cultural, archaeological and natural treasures. In order to make the most of these assets without burdening the municipality, I propose to include a new authority in the board of aldermen: "Tourism"This competence, the development of sustainable tourism, is added to “Local Economy”, “Culture” or “Education”, thus creating new opportunities for both residents and visitors.
I will focus on eco-tourism, with the beautiful nature and rich culture of Jette as the central focus. By working together with our sister cities and promoting tourism, we strengthen the local economy, create new jobs and ensure a more sustainable, greener Jette. All this makes Jette more attractive, not only for visitors but also for its own residents, while at the same time strengthening our international ties.
A well-developed tourist action plan will not only attract visitors to Jette, but also stimulate our local economy. By working together with traders and the hospitality industry, we ensure that tourists stay longer and spend more. In this way, we strengthen local trade in a sustainable way.
Culinary routes, cultural events and markets will go hand in hand with Jette's tourist attractions. This offers a unique opportunity for local traders to expand their offering and appeal to a wider audience, making Jette flourish.
By strengthening the tourist and cultural offer in Jette, we create new jobs in sectors such as hospitality, event organization and cultural management. This offers our young people and job seekers more opportunities, while giving the local economy a boost.
Collaboration with local businesses, educational institutions and cultural institutions ensures targeted employment initiatives that respond to the needs of our municipality and its residents. More events and activities create a lively Jette that offers opportunities to everyone.
A safe and clean environment is the basis for a liveable municipality. That is why we want to place more waste bins at strategic locations in the municipality, including options for separate waste collection. This helps to keep our squares and parks clean and increases awareness of recycling and sustainability.
In addition, we focus on traffic safety for all modes of transport: better parking routes for cars, safer cycle paths, well-maintained footpaths and clear crossings. Night-time lighting of parks and squares not only increases safety, but also creates an inviting atmosphere in our green spaces.
Accessibility and mobility are essential for both residents and visitors. That is why we are focusing on a mobility plan that includes all means of transport: improved parking facilities for cars, safe cycle paths and well-maintained footpaths. We want to ensure that everyone can move around Jette safely and efficiently.
We will also provide better signage to the cultural gems of Jette, such as museums, parks and archaeological sites. These clear indications will help both residents and tourists to easily find their way to everything our municipality has to offer.
The cultural and touristic treasures of Jette deserve better accessibility. With a targeted mobility plan we want to improve the accessibility of places like the Magritte Museum and other sights, both by public transport and by car and bike.
Together with better signage and parking facilities, we ensure that these places become a regular stop for both residents and tourists. This increases the visibility of our cultural assets and contributes to a strong local economy.
Art and culture should be accessible to everyone, and that is why I advocate a Fine Arts Academy in Jette. This academy would work together with existing artistic venues and cultural partners to give young talent the opportunity to develop and exhibit with a real quality offer by professionals.
By using Jette’s rich artistic heritage, with greats such as René Magritte and the history of comics (Jean Roba’s Bollie and Billie and the comics of Marc Daniëls and Studio Max!), we create a platform for talent development that strengthens Jette’s art scene. This ensures that art is even more integrated into the daily lives of Jette’s residents and visitors.
The Municipal Museum of the County of Jette houses more than 35,000 historical pieces, but this valuable collection can be presented better. By modernizing the museum layout with interactive displays and digital tools, we make the museum more accessible and attractive to a wide audience.
With extended opening hours, especially on weekends, we ensure that both residents and tourists can enjoy the rich history of Jette. This museum should become a focal point for tourism and education, a place that our residents can be proud of.
The archaeological finds in Jette are unique, but are currently hardly put in the spotlight. I want to have these sites further investigated in collaboration with museums, universities and local schools and thus make the history of Jette more accessible to the public
By setting up educational projects and working together with the local community, we can turn these archaeological sites into new tourist attractions. This will not only enhance the history of Jette, but also attract new visitors to our municipality.
Dieleghem Abbey has much more to offer than what is happening now. By organising concerts, lectures and exhibitions, we want to make the abbey a lively place for both residents and tourists. This not only strengthens the position of the abbey as a cultural centre, but also contributes to the cultural image of Jette.
By working together with cultural partners, schools and associations, we can create a rich range of activities that appeal to everyone. This makes the abbey a central point in the tourist and cultural life of Jette.
The Sint-Pieterskerk and its famous Van Bever organ are a pride of Jette, but deserve more attention. The annual organ festival can still grow into an international event that attracts visitors from far away. Through targeted promotion and cooperation with local catering, this will become an event for young and old.
In addition, we can integrate the organ and the church into our tourist plan by organizing more concerts in the church, why not together with the academy or the youth center? This further strengthens the cultural hub around the Mercierplein in our municipality.
Heritage is an important part of Jette's identity, but it must be actively experienced. By involving the community in the care and promotion of our heritage locations, we make heritage accessible and meaningful for everyone.
We stimulate activities such as guided tours, commemorations and events around heritage locations, so that young and old can build a bond with the past of our municipality, such as the Lourdes grotto, but also specific attention for the Jette resistance fighters. This makes heritage a living force in Jette.
Jette offers many recreational assets, such as the mini golf course in the Youth Park, but these can be used even better. By improving accessibility and adding catering via food and drink trucks, we make the Youth Park an attractive destination for families.
We better collect the offer of family activities in collaboration with the cultural actors in order to bring a better holiday program and more recreation tailored to young and old. This ensures that Jette becomes the place where families can relax and enjoy their free time.
The playground activities during school holidays are important, but is that a core task of the municipality? No. There are many qualitative actors who offer a wide range of activities during the school holidays. We can strengthen this range by working with them as a municipality. This leads to a more varied and professional range of holiday activities, and with subsidies to these organisations we can also focus on affordable prices for families from Jette.
We focus on cooperation with external partners to offer children and young people a quality holiday program that responds to their needs and interests. This creates extra opportunities for relaxation and education.
The Jette green service plays an important role in the green management of our municipality. The seasonal plantings in parks and squares give colour and life to our public spaces, and contribute to the quality of the living environment.
I want to further support these efforts by paying more attention to the maintenance of the green spaces, the use of sustainable planting and better communication about this. This ensures a green and environmentally friendly Jette, where it is pleasant to live and stay.
Jette has the privilege of having twinning cities in Sidi Bibi (Morocco) and Jojutla (Mexico), but the value of these twinnings has not been exploited to date. That is why I propose to give the authority "Tourism and Twinning" to be included in the board of aldermen. This authority will focus on strengthening the ties with our twinning cities, with a focus on cultural exchanges and cooperation in the areas of education, economy and tourism.
The partnership with Sidi Bibi and Jojutla offers Jette unique opportunities to forge new cultural and economic ties. By setting up exchange programs for young people, cultural organizations and socio-cultural associations, we can bring Jette residents into contact with other cultures. This twinning does not entail additional costs, but instead offers opportunities for international projects and subsidy applications, which enriches our municipality without burdening municipal resources. It also creates valuable opportunities for our youth and local associations to be active at an international level and to learn from each other.
This international collaboration strengthens Jette's position as a progressive and connected municipality.
By promoting and supporting existing events such as toy & comic fairs, exhibitions, concerts, organic markets and food festivals, we create a dynamic environment in which local entrepreneurs can grow.
These exchanges will not only stimulate the local economy, but also create a cultural bridge between Jette, the associations, the residents and twinning cities. These events offer residents the opportunity to discover new activities, and tourists are attracted by the unique mix of flavours. The local hospitality industry is thus given the opportunity to flourish and at the same time strengthens the ties with the local community.
The municipality can also establish more links with all local traders for its own activities and question them in order to meet their wishes and needs so that the commercial centre can flourish, provide employment and thus further develop the municipality.
Jette is home to impressive murals, including the tallest in Belgium. These works of art are more than just decoration: they can act as a catalyst for the upgrading of neighbourhoods. By developing a sustainable action plan for the preservation and promotion of these murals, we not only add colour to neighbourhoods, but also strengthen the sense of pride and community among residents.
This plan can also include neighborhood activities around these murals. By actively involving residents and local artists in these initiatives, we create a sustainable connection between art and daily life. The success and preservation of these murals depends entirely on the neighborhood in which they are installed and how that neighborhood was involved from conception to completion. In this way, the murals contribute to the quality of the neighborhoods and we promote an inclusive and vibrant community.
The Human Rights Trail in Jette is a powerful tool to share the values of our society with new residents, students and the wider community. This trail, consisting of artworks inspired by human rights, offers a unique opportunity to discuss topics such as freedom, equality and justice in a visual and accessible way.
By integrating the Human Rights Trail into a broader cultural program, we can involve schools, NT2 lessons and integration programs. This provides educational tours in which students and newcomers learn about the values and standards of our society. This initiative contributes to more understanding and respect in Jette and makes art a powerful tool for awareness and integration.
The function room above the libraries is a beautiful, underused space that can play a central role in the cultural life of Jette. By transforming this room into a place for performances, workshops and exhibitions, we offer residents and artists a stage for creativity and expression. This makes the function room a meeting place for different target groups and strengthens cultural participation in Jette, so that the Music Academies and schools in Jette do not have to move their performances outside the municipal borders.
The hall can be used flexibly for a variety of events, such as plays, film screenings, concerts and lectures. This not only offers a new platform for cultural expressions, but also promotes inclusion by being accessible to all residents of Jette. The party hall can thus grow into a vibrant centre of culture and encounter.
In addition, a complete inventory of all municipal properties and how and by whom they are used is required. This inventory is published on the municipal website and in info Jette so that every resident knows where the tax money for the Jetse patrimony goes, what happens to it and how these resources are spent. Transparency and efficiency for the benefit of the Jetse population.
CCJette is a recognized cultural center that already plays an important role in the cultural life of our municipality. By fully integrating CCJette with the Cultural Service Jette, we can use the budgets and personnel resources more efficiently. This leads to a more streamlined and coordinated cultural policy that can better respond to the needs of the residents.
A joint programming between CCJette and the Cultural Service offers space for a broader and more diverse cultural offer, aimed at all ages and interests. By also ensuring closer cooperation with local organizations, schools and associations, we strengthen cultural participation and ensure that Jette becomes a flourishing cultural center that both supports local talent and welcomes new initiatives.
Transparency is essential to promote trust in municipal funding programmers. I propose to use the municipal website and the municipal gazette info Jette to make the allocation of municipal subsidies transparent. In this way, citizens can see which organisations receive support, how much money has been allocated and how it is spent.
Grant recipients will have to submit regular reports, which will be shared via the municipal website and the core of which will also be included in the info Jette This provides a clear overview of the progress and results of the projects. Citizens can also provide feedback via these channels, which contributes to a dynamic and involved cultural policy.
Using existing channels prevents additional costs and makes it easy for residents to stay informed. This ensures responsible use of resources and strengthens the bond between the municipality and citizens.
Subsidies in the arts are not an end goal, but a means to build a solid and sustainable cultural operation in Jette. This financial support must be aimed at organizing cultural activities that benefit the local community. That is why I advocate that subsidies should in principle be used for the operation and activities of cultural organizations, with personnel costs kept to an absolute minimum. This ensures that the money ends up where it has the most effect: in the cultural participation of our residents.
But municipal support also means a responsibility for the organisations that receive these subsidies. Every form of support from the municipality must be accompanied by a return service to the population of Jette. This can be done by offering discounts for Jette residents, free public activities, strengthening local trade or promoting tourism to Jette. In this way, the subsidised projects contribute to the broader social and economic growth of our vibrant municipality.
With a transparent, efficient and targeted subsidy policy, we are building a stronger, more connected community. Jette is young, vibrant and full of potential, and through smart investments in culture, we give every resident the chance to benefit from this.
