Sail consultation CI survey flaws

There are concerns about a number of points concerning the carpenter Investments Sail questionnaire and the exhibition at which it was issued.

Notification prior to the exhibition
• the consultation schedule was for all households in CH48 to receive an invitation to the exhibition, but only some of them did actually received one. (e.g. "only alerted to it by a friend at the last minute" - respondent No. 168; also Nos 398, 466)
• invitations that were delivered were received at most two days in advance of the exhibition
• there was no advance notice of the exhibition by notices in West Kirby Concourse, West Kirby Library, or at the Sailing School
• the advertisement in the local papers was published during the week of the consultation rather than giving at least two weeks notice
• the event was advertised as an "exhibition", and people were not aware that it would be a consultation.

Organisation at the exhibition:
• some key points were not clearly explained e.g. who would own the sailing school if it were to be rebuilt by Carpenter Investments.
• detailed plans were not available ("no opportunity to visualise because no elevations" - respondent No. 198)
• plans were contradictory ("many contradictions in the material on display" - respondent No 218)
• the layout was too cramped ("a lady in a wheelchair had great difficulty getting anywhere near the information" - respondent No. 354)
• a model was there for some of the time (respondents Nos 329, 489) - but not at other times (No. 144)
• a video was shown for some of the time but not at other times
• there was no handout, so it is impossible to say what people felt they were saying yes or no to.
• no .pdf file has been published on the CI website

Design of the questionnaire
• question 1 should have been two questions - this caused difficulties for respondents, and also meant that some people (I know personally of two) did not complete a questionnaire because the tick box options did not allow them to express their opinion
• question 1 was a leading question
• question 1 should have been expanded to ask opinions on the specific proposals as well as broad opinion
• question 3 was ambiguous
• question 3 was a leading question

Conduct of the survey
• no questionnaire forms were available at the start of the exhibition and at other times - visitors were invited to write comments in a notebook. It is unclear whether these comments were then omitted from the analysis of the forms or were transcribed onto questionaires - neither of these would be satisfactory.
• there were some couples writing on a single questionnaire form
• there was no address on the questionnaire for those who wanted to write on it and take it away - so some had this written on by hand
• the email address given on the form did not work (respondent No. 213)

Analysis of the survey
• press reports of the CI analysis of question 1 do not match the released questionnaires
• press reports of the CI analysis of question 3 are very different from an analysis of the released questionnaires