On Thursday 4th October, SKDC Cabinet will discuss the responses to the Residents’ Survey which took place back in May this year. There hasn’t been a survey of this kind for many years and so it is being regarded by the rejuvenated Conservative administration as a baseline from which improvement can be objectively measured.

A total of 1,466 people responded to the questionnaire. About two thirds were submitted as a paper response to a direct mailing of almost 4,000 residents while the remainder were submitted online. Respondents’ postcodes reveal that the survey is fairly representative of residents across the District (although there were more responses from Deeping than from Bourne, #JustSaying!)

The first few questions ask for people’s feelings about SKDC. These are summarised in the graphic below. It is clear that South Kesteven is a great place to live with over 75% of respondents responding positively to the question. However, when it comes to Council services people are more restrained. Only 30% of respondents admit to speaking positively about the Council and over half of residents do not feel the Council acts on the concerns of residents.

A further question asks what respondents to identify what is important to them. This has been used to generate one of those funny ‘word cloud’ thingies which illustrates the disdain people hold for many of the services for which Lincolnshire County Council is mostly responsible including potholes, road repairs and street lights. This supports my ongoing argument that the failings of the County Council have a negative impact on the District Council.

The rest of the survey asks questions about particular services and yields some interesting information although the collated data must be taken with a pinch of salt. For example: many people express strong opinions about services they admit that they hardly ever use; and over 10% of respondents claim to use the ‘Festivals’ service every week, even though the Council only holds about three short bienniel festivals.

Nevertheless, here is a snapshot of what the survey says. You will probably notice that people are most impressed with the refuse collection service (78% positive) and leaset impressed with public toilets (only 25% positive).

Do you use SKDC services? Please feel free to share your opinion of them in the comments box below.