A COMMUNITY survey carried out in Wellington has met with a lukewarm response from residents and councillors.

Just 332 responses were received from the town’s 15,000 population in the three months the survey was live from mid-March through to June.

It was conducted by Smart Communities, part of the Community Council for Somerset, and was intended to build on a Wellington place plan which was drawn up by the former Somerset West and Taunton Council before the authority was abolished in April.

Smart Communities identified key topics and created a bespoke survey to seek residents’ views on them.

The questionnaire was available online, and was promoted at events, through groups, organisations, schools, businesses, and social media, including paid-for posts.

Door-to-door leafletting was also used on the Cades housing estate to encourage responses about a proposed community building.

Staff members also spent a day in Wellington speaking with groups, individuals, and business owners to encourage them to complete the survey.

But town councillors who will consider the survey findings on Tuesday have been told that it was to little avail.

A Smart Communities spokesperson said there was a much lower response rate than would have been expected.

The spokesperson said: “It is clear that residents of Wellington are hard to engage with, and that the direct personal approach is the best method.

“This is shown by the increase in responses the day Smart Communities staff members were speaking with people in Wellington, and also the higher number of responses from Cades Farm following the leaflet drop.”

However, only 52 people from the 600 homes on the Cades estate completed the survey after being leafleted.

Smart Communities said the lack of engagement was not only from individuals, but also from groups, and from town councillors themselves in terms of using their local networks and contacts to promote the consultation more widely.

The spokesperson said: “Events and activities took place during the consultation period but these yielded little response.

“There was a passive rather than a proactive presence and opportunities were missed to approach residents to complete the survey.

“The findings do, however, give a very high level indication of issues and concerns and further exploratory consultation and work could be done to explore views in more detail on specific topics.”

One of the ‘findings’ claimed by Smart Communities was that the cost of living crisis had impacted many people in Wellington.

Three-quarters of people who completed the survey said they had been forced to cut heating in their homes because of the crisis.

Asked about the importance of the ‘climate and nature emergency’, 14 per cent of respondents chose not to answer, and of the 284 who did respond, 62 per cent said it was ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important to them.

More opportunities for recycling, better public transport, and more safe cycleways and walkways were the top three solutions people believed would help reduce their carbon footprint.

Planting more trees was the top action people thought should be used to help the town meet the challenges of climate change.