Harborough residents are being given the opportunity to make your voice heard by taking part in a survey about the town. The results of the survey will form part of a new report.
Commissioned by Sustainable Harborough with support from Harborough District Council, the State of the Town report will consist of a combination of statistics from organisations such as the Office for National Statistics, supported by feedback from the opinion-based ‘Measuring what matters’ survey.
The report will include environmental data such as CO² emissions per capita and transport usage, as well as statistics about employment, the town’s economy, births and deaths and the local housing market. This will be supported by more subjective evidence from the residents’ survey as Gavin Fletcher, Project Manager for Sustainable Harborough explains.
“Facts can only tell us so much about a place – it is the people who live and work here who are best qualified to fill in the blanks and provide the full picture of what it’s really like to live in and around Market Harborough,” he says. “The more people who respond to the survey, the more accurate information we will have to help make decisions and have a positive impact on the town going forward.”
The report is being carried out by East Midlands based community economy specialists Rose Regeneration. When completed, it will be used by local government and other relevant organisations to make recommendations for action and support bids for funding etc. The full report will be published later in the year after all the information has been gathered, although Sustainable Harborough is hoping to share some of the initial findings at the I Love Market Harborough Festival on 27th June.
“Ultimately, the aim of the State of the Town report is to get a detailed picture of what it is like to live in the area – to help build on what we are doing well and work on things that need improvement,” adds Gavin. “People will be asked their opinion on a range of issues such as how easy it is to get a job after leaving education, the quality of our communal green spaces and about any participation in voluntary groups. This should provide a comprehensive set of measurable information which can be compared with a set of similar benchmark towns.”
You can can complete the 10 minute survey online here or by visiting www.sustainableharborough.co.uk.
There will also be researchers carrying out the survey on the streets of Market Harborough on Carnival Day on Saturday 13th June. Anyone who completes the full survey will be entered into a prize draw for a £50 local food voucher.
Sustainable Harborough is a lottery funded Communities Living Sustainably project aiming to show how community based projects can make life better in a market town. For more information about the survey or the report you can call 01858 466 207.
