Veria is working on its first Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan

The Municipality of Veria, in central Greece, is currently drafting its first Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP). The funds to draft the SUMP come from the national Ministry of Environment and Energy's 'Green Fund'. The city is amongst 162 municipalities in the country that have been selected to receive support from the Fund, which aims inter alia to support the creation of programmes to finance measures and actions aimed at protecting, upgrading and enhancing the environment as part of environmental and energy policy.

The process for the preparation of the SUMP began on 12 June and should be completed by August 2021. The drafting is being done in collaboration with an external consultant and is following the common SUMP guidelines, which were developed in March 2019 by the Hellenic Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, together with experts from the Ministry of Environment and Energy, the Ministry of Interior and Transport Associations.

The SUMP will set the framework within which the municipal authority will develop its mobility system in the coming years, in order to upgrade this to ensure a safer, more efficient, fairer and environmentally-friendly mobility system for residents and visitors. The SUMP intervention area includes the city of Veria, which has around 50,000 inhabitants, and the main connections with neighbouring municipalities.

One of the main elements of the development of a SUMP is the idea of a joint participatory process where all residents can help plan their future together and contribute to solving the mobility problems of the city to improve its quality of life and have a more sustainable city for all. During both its drafting and implementation, the SUMP process guarantees a strong participation and continuous flow of information between residents and institutions. Through participatory consultation procedures, the suggestions and observations of residents and agencies regarding both the current problems and preliminary proposals will be received and taken into account. To support this process, the Municipality will create a section on its website dedicated exclusively to the SUMP, where all materials and news will be posted.