THE results are in for the 2017 residents’ survey conducted by Cornwall Council.

Matt Barton, Cornwall Council’s head of service, strategy and business planning, was on hand during the Launceston Community Network Panel on Thursday, March 15, to present the results and answer the public’s questions.

A sample of the population was taken at random and surveys were sent via post. The results were then collated and presented to those present at the meeting.

There was a significant increase in the number of responses. In 2016 the survey only received 2,000 responses, but this year saw 11,247 completed surveys of a possible 30,000 sent out, Cornwall-wide.

For the Launceston area there were 471 responses. Mr Barton said the results were ‘favourable’ compared with the ‘mere 2,000’ seen the year before.

He said: “We got a mere 2,000 responses in 2016, it gave us a feel for people’s thoughts but when you disseminated it to all the community network areas (19) it only came out to 50 reposes per area.

“We were aiming to get around 500 responses this time around and we almost reached that here with 471.”

Dawn Rogers, South Petherwin parish councillor, questioned why more surveys weren’t sent out.

Mr Barton responded: “We wouldn’t need to send more out. We only needed a sample area from each network and we feel 11,000 responses is enough to give us the confidence that everyone would agree with the results.”

As part of the survey residents were asked whether they were satisfied with their local area as a place to live. Mr Barton said this had remained relatively consistent since 2004, with results staying in the 82% to 85% range. In 2017 82.3% of Cornwall residents were either ‘very’ (37.5%) or ‘fairly’ (44.8%) satisfied.

The break down showed that people in Launceston had an 85% satisfaction rate with the local area as a place to live, compared to Bude at 89% and Camelford at 83%.

Mr Barton said: “You can really see the variation through the results but, if I can throw out a challenge to you, can we over the next four years — when we repeat the survey — aim to raise the 83% towards the 90 level of satisfaction?”

Town, parish and Cornwall councillors agreed they would work towards this.

Next on the agenda was overall satisfaction with ‘the way the council runs things’ there was an overall satisfaction of 47% but 25% were dissatisfied, leaving the final 28% ‘neither satisfied not dissatisfied’.

Satisfaction however varied across the community network areas with Launceston at 54%, Bude at 53% and Camelford at 44%.

But when it came to deciding whether Cornwall Council provides ‘value for money’ the results were quite close. 30% of residents agreed the council provided value for money, whereas 36% disagreed, with the remaining 34% being on the fence. For Launceston 34% agreed, whereas Bude stood at 37% and Camelford only 24%.

One of the more revealing aspects of the survey’s results was the percentage of residents who were satisfied with council services.

Mr Barton said: “We asked a series of questions around customer access to services and the one that stood out as a negative was access to reliable broadband, it looks as if this has remained an issue for your network — maybe this could be set as one of your priorities?”

Councillors shared acknowledging nods.

Mr Barton added: “Of your bank of services the resource you felt needed improvement clearly is the health centre and health in general across Cornwall was a standout service of concern, but also affordable housing appeared high on the list.”

Overall, 43% of Cornwall residents agree the council and the police are dealing with anti-social behaviour and crime issues. Launceston was 44%, Bude 43% and Camelford 39%.

Mr Barton said: “Crime and disorder isn’t of high priority for this network as I believe your council and police are dealing with antisocial behaviour quite well and a higher number of people agree with this.”

But one aspect of crime that Launceston residents didn’t feel was being effectively tackled was ‘environmental nuisance’ e.g. fly tipping.

Mr Barton added: “Final food for thought, fly tipping may be something you want to focus in on as a network in future talks.”