Fwd: Location of Humps
Kalvis Jansons
Date: 8 March 2010 08:29
Subject: Location of Humps
To: hu...@mostsimply.com
Hi All,
There is a new page on the website giving details of exactly where the
11 road humps are going to be installed at
http://mostsimply.com/humplocations.htm.
Please email the Ickleford Parish Council at ma...@icklefordpc.com and
ask them to use their influence and power to delay installation of the
humps whilst a thorough examination of the wording of their surveys
and results can take place. To inflate their percentages, the IPC
blatantly ignored all those who specifically answered "Don't Know" to
questions in the Ickleford Parish Plan.
In gauging local opinion, the IPC have confirmed that they have used
their survey results in making the decision to allow 11 humps in
Ickleford. However the wording of their questionnaires, their
presentation of the results, the fact that no expert survey advice was
used in writing the questions, and that there was no independent
validation of the results means the results have no credibility and
cannot be relied upon.
This is very significant and starts with the very first question the
IPC asked Ickleford in 2006. Stating that "Speed is a Major Concern"
and then asking "Is Speed a Major Concern" makes a survey question
highly leading and emotive. In order to get a more helpful and less
biased result we believe it would have been much better to ask the
following question:
* Do you think that (please select one option only):
(A) most vehicles speed through the village
(B) a few vehicles speed through the village
(C) speed is not a significant issue in the village
(D) Don't Know
The IPC later report "85% said Speed was a major concern" but since
the "Don't Know" answers were ignored this percentage should have been
much lower. In fact 504 households (yes you have to all have the same
opinion if you live in the same house!) out of 789 households said
"YES Speed was a major concern". This is actually only 64% (on a
leading question) and we only have the IPC's word that the 504 figure
is correct.
Furthermore the IPC have a duty of care when producing local authority
literature as described at
http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/localgovernment/pdf/155067.pdf.
There is a large elderly community in Ickleford and this document
states in point 22 "Where material is distributed on matters closely
affecting vulnerable sections of the community - for example, the
elderly - particular care should be taken to ensure that it is
unambiguous, readily intelligible, and unlikely to cause needless
concern to those reading, seeing or listening to it."
We believe that with careless wording, the IPC have played on the very
emotive subject of "Speed" and as a result have failed in their duty
of care to the residents of Ickleford and in particular to the
elderly.
This is just the first step in a long process that has led to the hump
decision. We have a lot more work to do on the decision process but
this alone suggests that IPC decisions have not been based on genuine
local opinion.
Kind regards
Adrian