Profondeville
Profondeville is a municipality assembling six villages in the Haute-Meuse river valley situated 80 km south-east of Brussels, in the Namur Province, Belgium. All six villages count around 12 000 inhabitants.
Profondeville is not famous for its cathedrals, museums or monuments, but for its rich and picturesque nature (out of 50,34 km², 50 % is farming land and 27 % are forests). The area is famous for its paragliding spots, underground cavities good for speleology, outdoor activities such as hiking and bicycling and, above all, water sports on the Meuse river.
Profondeville’s villages also have a reputation for the vivid social life they offer. All year long festivities set the pace for gatherings that strengthen social ties and help newcomers to get involved.
Located near the city of Namur, Profondeville faces the stakes of many suburban villages. It has to keep its rural identity and quality of life while accompanying the unavoidable development of housing and tertiary sectors.
Profondeville’s digital strategy is focused around three areas of interest :
- Data lifecycle and management to help us face challenges and improve public policies (for example, in energy consumption and mobility), setting up a ‘low maintenance’ data strategy to be able to manage as much data as possible with a reduced workforce and tight means.
- Enhance democracy through citizen engagement and participation.
- Promote our area to visitors and develop tourism.
(Photo credit : Stéphane Coupé)
Village strategy :News
A vintage bicycle race for charity
The eight edition of the famous vintage bicycle race ‘La Vieille Boucle’ will be held in the Lustin village, Profondeville, on 5 September 2021. The race will gather enthusiast bikers for a revival of the “Tour de France” of the old times: the 50s, 60s and 70s.
If you happen to be in Belgium in the beginning of September, do not miss the opportunity, subscribe here.
Profondeville launches new climbing site
The newly launched climbing site – ‘Rocher des Béguines à Rivière’ – is the latest in a range of outdoor activities the municipality offers, including trails, mountain biking, paragliding, caving and even nautical possibilities.
The climbing site comprises around 20 climbing routes, between 15 and 25 metres tall, and is the result of over 1 000 hours of volunteer work. It has been made available to the municipality for a period of nine years.
The rock is located 100 metres away from a Natura 2000 site, therefore, the beneficiary – the Flemish Climbing Federation (KBF) – had to obtain an environmental permit and cooperate with the Department of Nature and Forests for the preparation of the ground.
Lookout trucks to provide valuable territory data of Namur region
Profondeville is one of three municipalities partnering in the award-winning ‘Sentinel Trucks’ project which will equip garbage collection trucks with data sensors to collect information on air quality, road conditions, weather data, and more. The project is led by the Economic Bureau of the Province of Namur (BEP) and has received a grant from the Digital Wallonia agency.
The collected data will provide a better knowledge of the Namur region and can be used as a decision support tool for the project partners as well as local and supra-local actors in the territory. A total of 40 trucks will be equipped with sensors and the collection of territory data is expected to begin at the end of 2021.
Photo credit : BEP
Profondeville villages getting high-speed broadband internet
Approximately 250 households in the municipality of Profondeville, the Besinne and Arbre villages, are in the process of getting high-speed broadband internet. This is a result of an innovative solution, implemented by the Belgian telecom provider Proximus, which includes combining wireless technologies with underground and overhead cabling to provide the broadband signal to these rural areas.
The necessity for broadband internet was highlighted during the first Covid-19 confinement in 2020 when family members were not able to connect all at the same time for work or school lessons, hence, were forced to schedule their internet usage.
The text is based on a news article by Ronald Pirlot published in lavenir.net.
Videos
5th Smart Rural Café, Profondeville (23 June, 2021)
During the 5th Smart Rural Communities Café, Bernard Dubuisson from Profondeville tells about their plans to provide open data to help solve mobility problems and explain how they would like to bring new practices into public service provision around the management of data. He also explains how they provided broadband internet to a remote village at a very low cost and unveil how garbage trucks can help improve mobile coverage.
Resources :
Bernard Dubuisson - Municipality of Profondeville ( 23/02/2021 )
A presentation provided at the 2nd Smart Village Academy of the Smart Rural 21 project during the “Local data and data management– recognising data and making use of it” working group.The presentation aimed to address questions like: Which data do you deal with? How do you deal with data? How open data can help public policy? Which support do villages need?
Language : English
Municipality of Profondeville ( 12/2020 )
The Summary Highlights of the Smart Village Strategy of Profondeville has been developed in the context of the ‘Preparatory Action for Smart Rural Areas in the 21st Century’ project funded by the European Commission.
Language : English
