Saturday, June 09, 2007

Council Tax

With a view apparently to establishing how our council tax should be spent, PDC has asked town and parish councillors to pick just 5 things that:

'are most important in making somewhere a good place to live'
and 'five things that most need improving' from the list below.

- access to nature
- activities for teenagers
- affordable decent housing
- clean streets
- community activities
- cultural facilities
- education provision
- facilities for young children
- health services
- job prospects
- the level of crime
- the level of pollution
- the level of traffic congestion
- parks and open spaces
- public transport
- race relations
- road and pavement repairs
- shopping facilities
- sports and leisure facilities
- wage levels and local cost of living
- other ??
- any other comments

What are your 5 priority answers to each question?
(I personally don't like such surveys, for they can be used to say "people didn't think such and such was important", but what can you do if you can only choose 5 out of 21 things?)
Posted by at

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

-marina/cum working harbour
-50m pool + leisure centre
-pedestrianisation
-better links to wareham
-10 x the number of industrial estate units

the rest will follow -have no fear Swanage, this can be like a swiss canton, have the courage to be different, forward thinking and innovative

9/6/07 11:50 am
Anonymous said...

We should be thinking about the 50 things PDC should become uninvolved in. Create a stable environment, remove red tape and let the public sector deliver the goods.

9/6/07 3:56 pm
Anonymous said...

Oh dear. This is like one of those exams where people write brilliant answers to questions that have not been asked and wonder why they fail. Stick to the question please, and less posturing.

10/6/07 12:08 pm
Anonymous said...

affordable decent housing
health services
job prospects
sports and leisure facilities
wage levels and local cost of living

10/6/07 4:10 pm
Anonymous said...

I agree with the above except I'd replace health with education

5 to improve

activities for teenagers
cultural facilities
job prospects
public transport
sports and leisure facilities

10/6/07 6:13 pm
Anonymous said...

A trouble with such questionnaires is that those who perhaps should be filling them in don't have the time. Those who do complete them tend to have a particular agenda which isn't representative of the community as a whole and the inherently-skewed results are all too often used only to support what would almost certainly be done in any case and to then stifle opposition with the line that whatever is provoking controversy was what the public democratically "voted" in favour of. It is not really consultation is it.

11/6/07 9:47 am
Anonymous said...

How do you suggest finding out what people want? Why do you think the aggregated views of the minority who are willing to take a few minutes to answer questions are any different from the generality. The point is they are averaged out. Let me give an example. If you were to take the views of those interested enough to be members of political parties as a whole they would average out at about the same as the general public, despite one party being full of hang 'em and flog 'em cranks and another with the opposite opinions.

It is a serious question though. I studied this briefly a good many years ago. You need to go to a good market research company and pay them the going rate. Its what companies do when they want to know whether concentrate on making ale of lager for example. It is certainly not infallible, witness the number of marketing mess-ups but it is a lot more scientific than the methods used by councils and other public bodies I have been involved with. Unfortunately our decision makers have even less grasp of statistical techniques than I have and would not recognise a significance test if it hit them over the head. Perhaps we should be asking the candidates what they are like with a spread sheet. What do you think, Mr Moderator?

11/6/07 11:16 am
Anonymous said...

ok, from the list:
-cultural facilites
-traffic congestion
other:
-affordable office/workshop space
-pedestrianisation
-safe harbour
as a coastal town we should celebrate this; protecting the fishing industry and encouraging more visitors by sea is a good start

11/6/07 1:55 pm
Anonymous said...

1. Too many rotten developments
2. Too much rubbish
3. Too many hills
4. Too many people
5. Too few delicatessens

11/6/07 4:58 pm
Anonymous said...

To 4:58 PM, Anonymous, if you dont like hills, why not move somewhere flat?

I hear Holland has a shortage of hills.

11/6/07 5:05 pm
Anonymous said...

Too few delicatessens-
Now there's a point. the culinary face of Swanage is noes diving.

11/6/07 5:08 pm
Anonymous said...

The Deli has improved since it got it's new owner.
Those scones, uummm.
Mind you, no olives stuffed with chillis.

11/6/07 6:11 pm
Anonymous said...

It'd be great if 4:58 could identify these rotten developments.

11/6/07 8:13 pm

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