Department of the Environment,
Transport and the Regions

The Beacon Scheme/Excellence in Local Government

The Beacon Council Scheme 2000/2001:
Baseline Data

A Handbook on Measurements of User Satisfaction
in Local Government Service Delivery

11. Planning — Town Centre Regeneration

Below are two national survey-based satisfaction measures, taken from the 1998 survey of Best Value pilots. Data are based on residents as a whole, rather than service users.

Satisfaction Measures
 

Very/fairly
Satisfied

Very/fairly
dissatisfied

Net

Town/City Centre Management:

     

Best Value 1998 Pilots:

     

Overall

38

20

+18

County Council

39

24

+15

District Councils

37

23

+14

Mets

50

10

+40

Unitaries

36

27

+9

London Boroughs

23

14

+9

       

Planning and Control of Development:

     

Best Value 1998 Pilots

23

20

+3

Source: MORI

 

We would judge these to be of, at best, limited use when evaluating survey-based data provided by an applicant authority, due to:

  • the extremely diverse nature of towns and city centres in England;

  • little likelihood of authorities using both the same methodology to canvas views and little consistency in terms of question wording;

  • the public’s limited understanding of terms such as ‘control of development’.

From our experience of working with local authorities and following our mail-out to LARIA contacts and internet trawl, we would expect applicant authorities to have used a variety of qualitative and quantitative survey methods to gauge the views of main stakeholder groups: local residents, visitors and traders. However, the studies we have collated are not sufficient to establish further national baselines.

Further Reading

Vital and Viable Town Centres, HMSO 1994. This report includes data from a survey conducted by URBED with the Royal Town Planning Institute of all local authority chief planning officers in 1993. The data includes planning officers’ perceptions of the following:

  • Whether their town centre is vibrant/declining;

  • How effectively their town centre is competing with its nearest rivals;

  • What they perceived were good indicators to measure how their town centre was performing;

  • Whether they have consulted with other stakeholders when making decisions e.g. local businesses.

There is also other non-survey data included such as numbers of people living in town centres and amount of retail property available, which could be of relevance.

  

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Published 31 January 2001
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