consultation

Consultation - The Approach

From June to August 2003 Realplanning consulted the wider local community to find out how local people would like to see the canal corridor site developed. This required a survey of attitudes to be undertaken.

The RPfL group considered in detail

who to survey - local residents are not necessarily the only people with opinions about the site
how to survey - there are pros and cons regarding the validity of responses from different techniques such as face-to-face interviewing and responses from questionnaires.

It was decided that a mixed methodology carried out in a variety of locations would be the best way to provide an overview of the publics attitude. A questionnaire was devised which was used for all of the consultation (to provide consistency) but in different ways. The content of the questionnaire was informed by three main contextual strands, namely

the councils development brief,
the elements of the Chelverton/Carillion draft proposals and
the opinions and ideas contributed by the people who attended two RPfL meetings in Autumn 2002.

The questionnaire was used in three ways:
1. a stall in Market square on several Saturdays. People approached the stall and completed the questionnaire on the spot. Others were approached and asked if they would spare some time to answer the questions. This was done to sample the people that currently use the town centre, but who may not necessarily be local residents.
2. door-to-door knocking and interviewing residents. Streets were selected in neighbourhoods near to the site in order to gauge local opinion. Questionnaires were either completed on-the-spot or they were left with the householder to return.
3. questionnaires delivered to households for the householder to return once completed.

406 questionnaires were collected, of which 250 were from local residents (2 & 3 above). The vast majority of people who were approached face-to-face (1 & 2) were happy to respond.

The questionnaire involved an initial set of 18 specific statements inviting responses from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Two further open questions invited respondents views about what they liked and disliked about Lancaster (click here to view the consultation report) . A final open question asked what the respondent would like to happen to the site.

The questionnaire can be viewed as a word as a word document