For your attention: Full Report and Executive Summary of the output from the Parish Field Survey

 

THE PARISH FIELD SURVEY

Following a recent meeting, the Parish Pastoral Council agreed to publish the Parish Field Survey.

A limited number is available from the Parish Office and a summary will be displayed on the Church Notice Board

We are very grateful to all parishioners and local people who submitted their views, opinions and suggestions. They will be very helpful as the Parish Pastoral council assess any future direction.

 

Please find below Executive Summary of the output from the Parish Survey and            CLICK HERE FOR FULL REPORT

 

St. Anthony’s Parish Survey  Re:Possible use of part of the Parish Field for Homeless January 2020  Executive Summary

A survey form and a  document explaining the PPC initiative on suggested use of the Parish  Field was circulated to approx. 2000 homes in the Parish, in early December. A further approx. 1000 forms were taken from the Church. The ballot box was opened in the presence of an independent solicitor on January 27th and immediately given to an independent expert, to whom the PPC is very grateful, for quantitative analysis. Note that his was not a plebiscite nor a referendum, but a consultation with local people and Parishioners. 512 questionnaires (out of approx. 3000 distributed) were received; 15 were removed as invalid by the independent enumerator leaving 497 valid responses   .   Respondents were asked to indicate the basis on which their opinion should be included, but no paper was eliminated based on reply to this question, and those who did not fill in this section were still included.    The Parish Council had hoped to make the results available sooner but discussions were disrupted by the Pandemic restrictions.

In relation to the proposal to consider use of the Parish Field to provide housing for homeless people,28% agreed strongly, 5% agreed, 2% neither agreed nor disagreed, 4% disagreed slightly and 60% disagreed strongly , giving a ratio of just under 2:1 not agreeing to the development.

Further analysis showed that most (60%) of those disagreeing came from 3 roads adjacent to the Field with 14% from other parts of the parish and 25% not giving any address, and 1% had addresses outside the Parish. While opinion from those 3 roads was more than 8:1 against the initiative, there was a significant number of residents of those roads strongly in favour.

 Opinions from other parts of the Parish were more than 2:1 in support of the initiative. Of those who Agreed or agreed strongly, 22% were from the 3 adjacent roads,62% from other addresses in the Parish, 19% gave no address and 6% were from outside the Parish.

A universal point of agreement was that at least a portion of the Field should be retained and not developed. Among those in favour, the majority favoured use of between 60% and 80% of the Field for Homeless; among those not in favour, a small proportion were open to use of 50-60% of the Field for this purpose. Of those who gave reasons why they were opposed, more than half were concerned about loss of an amenity, in particular in relation to elderly and young children not having to cross the main road. The protection of local wildlife was also a concern expressed by some, and an expert report commissioned by the PPC is published on the Parish website. Some of those opposed were open to a development if it included provision for some elderly people and people with disabilities from the Parish who would not qualify for DCC’s Housing list. The forms from those in favour showed a general openness to any group in need of homes, with particular support for elderly, families and people with disabilities or special needs.

Many of the other comments and suggestions could be classified under specific headings; others which did not fall neatly under those headings are summarised in a table so that good suggestions are not lost. Both of these lists of suggestions, and full details of all the other results above, are contained in a  full report available on the parish website (https://stanthonysclontarf.ie)