Saturday, November 05, 2005

St Peter's Square Masterplan

SMBC have upgraded their pages about St Peter's Square Masterplan. It includes a 6 page document of computer generated views and an aerial photo.

There is also an online questionnaire. So you don't need to find the 'Stockpod' to comment.

The questionnaire is cleverly constructed. The first question is, "What are your first impressions?", so even if you answer "poor" (the most negative response allowed for) it could be dismissed as a first impression. After that, the questions are: what in the square needs the most improvement, what are the most important aspects of the new design and , what would you use St Peters for if the improvements are made. So a negative response is impossible. The closest you can get to a negative response, is to leave the answers blank, but that just excludes you from the statistics. Well done SMBC for producing a questionnaire which guarantees that every response can be used to show support for the scheme.

I trust that canny Stopfordians will not limit themselves to answering the questions and tell the Council what they really think.

Not that we necessarily have to be negative about the plan, I would just like to see a more genuine consultation.