After Amsterdam and Rotterdam, four more large Dutch municipalities are preparing measures to regulate speed camera delivery. It concerns The Hague, Groningen, Arnhem and Amstelveen, who want to prevent the rapid advance of the super fast grocery deliverers from causing nuisance.
Flash deliverers such as Getir, Flink, Glorillas and Zapp are active in 29 Dutch municipalities. With the exception of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, NRC a tour of all those cities. Of the 23 municipalities that responded to questions, 9 say they regularly receive complaints from local residents or entrepreneurs because of the nuisance caused by the speed camera drivers. This mainly concerns noise pollution, increasing traffic and incorrectly parked bicycles.
For this reason, Amsterdam already decided at the end of January to put an immediate stop to new branches of flash delivery companies – companies that deliver groceries to your home for 1.80 euros via couriers within a few minutes. Rotterdam followed in early February. Speed cameras in both cities will not be allowed to open new warehouses for delivering to customers in the coming year.
If not according to the zoning plan
Amersfoort also decided to intervene two weeks ago. The municipality closed the only branch of a flash delivery service in the city for the time being, because the operator – the German Flink – had settled in a location in the center where this was not allowed according to the zoning plan. That decision was also taken after local residents reported nuisance†
Read the background story here: The Hague, Groningen, Arnhem and Amstelveen are also taking action against flash deliverers
The Hague, Groningen, Arnhem and Amstelveen now also want to take measures before the nuisance becomes too great. The municipalities are working on policies that would allow them to ban warehouses in some areas of the city.
For example, Groningen wants to protect the ‘core shopping area’ and draw up a policy to prevent the ‘commercial storage’ of delivery vans and bicycles. Arnhem wants speed cameras to only be able to settle in a building after they have received a permit. In addition to the four municipalities that intervene, there are also four municipalities that are investigating the possibilities, but have not yet taken a decision. These are Almere, Enschede, Delft and Leiden.
There are currently four major flash delivery companies active in the Netherlands: Flink, Getir, Gorillas and Zapp. At the end of 2020, Gorillas was the first to start in the Netherlands. Flink’s pink delivery backpacks are found in most places (28 cities). Zapp, the smallest, is currently only available in Amsterdam, Amstelveen and Rotterdam.
The complaints keep coming E2-3
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of February 15, 2022