Background:
This report contains the results of the third consultation with the North Lincolnshire Community Panel. The first consultation took place in April 1999 following immediately after its formation. This addressed citizens' views on North Lincolnshire as a place to live, overall views on image and performance of the authority and future priorities. The second consultation was held in September 1999, addressing a range of council issues including contacting the council and preferred form of local government structure.
The third consultation took place in early 2000 addressing a broad range of issues including:
- Assessment of respondents' neighbourhoods
- Notional allocation of additional funding
- The North Lincolnshire countryside
- Building developments
- Scunthorpe town centre
- Comments about services provided or living in North Lincolnshire
- Comments about being a panel member.
Unlike the previous two consultations, which were conducted by a self-completion postal questionnaire, this third consultation was undertaken by telephone. This was done for three principle reasons:
- To enhance the response rate.
- To enhance the quality of responses.
- To renew the panel.
Three separate processes were undertaken:
- Existing panel members were contacted by telephone.
- Existing panel members who were unable to be contacted by telephone were sent a postal questionnaire.
- New members of the general public were contacted and consulted by telephone in addition to being recruited to the panel.
The result of this revised methodology is that the North Lincolnshire community panel is now up to a membership of 1100. This size panel produces a 95% accuracy rate, plus or minus 3% error. The standard error moves to plus or minus 4% for the reduced sizes used to produce an urban/rural split.
Assessment of Neighbourhood
Overall, approximately 90% of respondents were either satisfied or very satisfied with their neighbourhood, there being a slight bias in favour of rural communities.
Over 50% of respondents indicated there is a ‘great need’ for improvement with:
- More facilities/activities for young people (69%)
- Reducing incidents of crime and violence (67%)
- More satisfying & healthy jobs/training for local people (64%)
- More support for local small businesses / trades (62%)
- Better public transport (58%)
- Reducing incidents of nuisance and disorder (55%)
- Greater financial security for people (50%)
Only ‘better public transport’ is significantly more important to residents in rural areas than residents in urban areas. When asked what else could be done to improve the lives of people living in their neighbourhoods, ‘increased police presence/involvement in the community’ was the most frequently stated issue by both rural and urban communities.
Allocation of Additional Funding
Residents were asked the following hypothetical question ‘if the council received significant extra funding to improve North Lincolnshire, how would you prefer the extra funds to be spent?’ Employment was the dominant response being stated by nearly 25% of respondents with safety being a close second.
The North Lincolnshire Countryside
Residents were asked if they felt that the natural environment was adequately protected in North Lincolnshire. There was a considerable urban/rural difference with 54% of rural residents answering yes compared to 44% of urban residents. Almost 20% however did not know. Respondents biggest concern was to protect land from being built on.
Residents were also asked about public access to the countryside, with 63% saying they were satisfied, although 27% of urban residents said they did not know, as did 25% when asked if the council should enable greater public access.
Better signage/maintenance/protection of walkways was the dominant issue when commenting generally on the countryside.
Building Developments in the North Lincolnshire Area
Residents were asked to score out of 10 the quality of building development in the last year across North Lincolnshire. The average score was 5.7 being split into 5.5 in urban communities and 6 in rural locations.
Scunthorpe Town Centre
Sixty per cent of respondents visit Scunthorpe at least twice per week, with improvements to the variety of shops being the most requested feature.
Eight-five per cent of respondents stated they felt safe and secure when shopping in the town centre and 92% stated they support the efforts to improve Scunthorpe town centre.
Additional Comments
Services provided by the council or living in North Lincolnshire
When asked to comment about any aspect of the services provided by the council or about living in North Lincolnshire 479 panel members responded. ‘Generally good’ was the statement made by 73 respondents, other comments have been classified into various sections, the top comment for each section being:
- Improve public transport (26 people) and improve roads (17)
- spend money more wisely/wasted on unimportant things (43)
- dislike redevelopment's/in wrong place (27)
- more CCTV/policing/greater safety (21)
‘Community Voice’
The overwhelming majority of these comments about being a panel member were in favour/praise of the panel, typical comments being:
- nice to voice opinions/be taken notice of
- interesting/ informative/raises awareness
- happy to do it/happy about it/like being involved/nice to be helpful
- good idea/excellent/good to seek views
All the other questions were to do with recruiting/updating information about panel members and their households, one interesting statistic being that 25% of urban and 28% of rural residents now have access to the Internet.