The city council was in turmoil after Connect Wageningen joined in 2018. Other political parties were confronted with the fact that they almost had no active young people. As a response they started to actively search for them as well. We count that as an indirect result of Connect Wageningen. Furthermore, it turned out to be much harder to talk about young people, with young people. So, us joining the city council required some getting used to. But in the end, Wageningen is the better for it!

This was one of our most important dossiers. Models of the population growth were consistently underestimating the actual growth of Wageningen. And numbers that are published are being played with. As an example, students are now evicted after 3 or 6 months after they finish their studies. Consequently, they must move out of their student room, often to their parents and thus register in the new municipality. Therefore, they are not visible in the housing shortage of Wageningen anymore. Since our start in 2018 we have time and time again asked attention for the housing crisis and insisted on urgency.

Since the national climate agreement was signed, there is happening a lot in municipalities and regions. The regional energy strategy Foodvalley was written, and every municipality needs to make a warmth-transition-vision. We looked at possibilities for green energy production in the region and for improving energy labels and reducing CO2 emissions within the municipality. Connect Wageningen was not sitting still and actively contributing.