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CASE STUDY : Survey of local community needs
The educational needs of a new development were unclear and the developer needed a snapshot of the local community to help determine its requirements. The objective for Green Issues was to survey the community and achieve near 100% participation in order to gain an accurate picture of the population and its needs.
Green Issues designed a questionnaire to obtain the required responses. In order to ensure maximum participation, a three-fold strategy was employed. Firstly, all residences in the development were sent a survey in the post with return envelopes provided. Then, telephone polling was used to increase the rate of return. Finally, staff from Green Issues knocked on residents' doors to go through the questionnaire in person. At every stage a careful database was maintained to record responses and ensure only non-respondent households were targeted.
These methods were in line with Government views of ensuring maximum participation and tailoring consultation methods to the local community. For example many people may have been too busy to attend a public exhibition but were still provided with an opportunity to feed their views into the process. At 80%, a very high return was achieved for the questionnaire making this a viable and effective means of gathering information. |