Massive survey will benefit lives in the Bay of Plenty

Tuesday 30 January 2007

Don’t hang up! An important phone call may be coming your way over the next few weeks. It’s all for a good cause, and you might even win a prize for helping out.

Thousands of Bay of Plenty residents will be contacted for Environment Bay of Plenty’s biggest-ever survey project, which starts on Wednesday 31 January. Key Research, which is commissioned to do the work, will be questioning 3,000 people in total.

Environment Bay of Plenty has two surveys on the go. The largest, seeking 1750 replies, is an important benchmark survey related to people’s future vision for the region. It is designed to pin down people’s current view of the overall quality of life in the Bay of Plenty. Because of this, it will include questions like how active they are, what they think of the state of the environment, their access to healthcare, and how they get from place to place.

When tied in with other monitoring, the survey will help provide the benchmark for progress on the Bay of Plenty Community Outcomes. The eight outcomes are goals that the community believes are important for its present and future economic, social, cultural and environmental well-being. All sorts of organisations, from local councils to the police, will be working to achieve them.

Environment Bay of Plenty’s strategic policy chairman, Ian Noble, says the survey will solidify the Community Outcomes because it allows the council to measure progress on them. It will be repeated every three years. “It helps make the outcomes more real somehow. Over time, we will be able to see quite clearly whether we’re moving forward or slipping back in different areas.”

Environment Bay of Plenty’s second survey runs every three years and involves 1250 respondents. It centres around people’s knowledge of the Bay of Plenty community and their relationship with Environment Bay of Plenty.

Mr Noble urges people who are contacted to help out by answering the survey questions. “Both of these telephone surveys have very real benefits for the entire region. The results will be used to improve the quality of life for the Bay of Plenty community.”

The names of those who answer the surveys will go into a draw for three $250 grocery vouchers.

For further information, please contact Environment Bay of Plenty on 0800 ENV BOP (368 267).

ENDS

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