Shirebrook street survey 2022

I had long planned to conduct a street opinion poll in Shirebrook to see how much residents know about our town’s current issues and how many residents know about S247. I finally found the time to do this, so I took my tablet to Market Square.

It was a pleasant experience, even though it started with a minor technical glitch (I forgot my phone, which serves as the tablet’s internet source). The discussion of the results of the survey begins with a paragraph entitled LET’S TALK ABOUT NUMBERS. For the more patient readers- a short introduction describing the day’s events.

OPEN YOUR EYES!
Before I start describing the results, however, I must mention a few things that happened during my work in Market Square. I will start with the gentleman with the swallow tattoo on his neck. He got a bit carried away because when I started the survey, he was clearly trying to persuade people not to talk to me.

Apart from this incident at the beginning of my work – I generally felt safe and welcomed. Although meeting strangers has never been one of my favourite activities, I have had some fascinating conversations. The longer I stood in Market Square, the friendlier I was treated. Apparently, Tory is not as bad as they say he is.

I also met an STC employee roaming around the square. He didn’t see me for a long time, but I must say he was working honestly. He cleaned up and helped passers-by. It was generally apparent that he was a busy bee.

A SHOCKER! REAL, LIVE SOCIALIST!
Another incredible experience was meeting two representatives of the Socialist Party who were running their political campaign. I’ll be honest – it was the first time I agreed with something a Socialist said. The Socialist Party is campaigning against a tax increase to build a swimming pool. I support it! As God loves me! I support the Socialist Party’s demand, and I am campaigning identically to them! Can someone check if hell has frozen over? Did I agree with the socialists? The world hasn’t seen it yet!!!

As I support their actions, I will summarise what this is all about. STC has given the people of our township a choice: incur a debt of 4 million, 9 million or 12 million. What about the people who share my position and do not want any debt or increased tax? Unfortunately, the people who share this opinion have only one representative on the STC- me.

LEAFLET AS NO OTHER IN MY COLLECTION!
I am curious if I’ve written about this before, but I have an unusual hobby – collecting elections and canvassing political party leaflets. So, of course, I asked for their flyer. I add it to my collection with an indulgent smile on my lips. The whole leaflet is filled with ridiculous demands, but the funniest for me is: “Kick all the Tories out!”.

Khm, khm – there’s only one Tory in the STC, so it looks like the socialists want to…. kick me. How rude! Can a socialist could be civilised for once??? The problem is that in the paragraph with that aggressive title, I also read: “We need councillors to fight Tory cuts, not pass them on”. Dear socialists-Tories have one seat on STC: mine. I never proposed cuts. I proposed freezing Local Tax and shifting 20% from the Leisure budget (260,000 pounds last tax year) to crime prevention (zero pounds last tax year). That’s all there is to it. So what cuts are the socialists writing about? I don’t know.

WEDNESDAY
The poll on Wednesday was conducted in an even friendlier atmosphere. People already knew who I was and that I was harmless, so I was greeted with smiles, cheers and generally friendly gestures. Moreover, whereas on Tuesday, I only met one person who voted for me, on Wednesday, I met so many that, at one point, I stopped counting.

It was a perfect day – nothing builds morale more than words of encouragement and support from someone who voted for you and appreciated all the work I have done over the last year and a half. In addition, all the people I have met have confirmed that they will vote for me if I run again- thank you. I am currently fighting for the Conservative Party nomination, as the procedure to get the nomination is not as easy and straightforward as most people think. So if you want to join me- do not hesitate!

All in all, Wednesday went without any adventures. Everyone was friendly, open and smiling.

LET’S TALK ABOUT NUMBERS
Unfortunately, many people don’t have time in the middle of the day to stop and answer 12 questions – here’s a lesson for me to make the next survey shorter. In addition, I met a surprisingly large number of people from out of town, so I immediately apologised to them and walked away, saying that the survey was not for them. So only people who confirmed they lived in Shirebrook took the survey.

I wonder if this survey can be considered representative, but the answers to some of the questions were so similar that, as you will see for yourself- there is no doubt that most residents would answer similarly. So let’s see what questions I asked and how the residents answered!

QUESTION 1 and 12
Question 1 and question 12 are so-called control questions. This question aims to determine how the respondent assessed their knowledge before the survey and how their assessment changed after the survey.

As you can see, before the survey, the residents rated their knowledge at 6.16. However, my questions made many respondents realise that they knew less than they thought, so after the survey, the average dropped to 4.91. So here is another lesson for me – I should be the one to subtract points every time a respondent needs help knowing the answer to the most straightforward questions, such as: “who is the mayor of the township?”

QUESTION 2

We have a mayor, but nobody knows who he is. Is this the mark of a good leader? How is a team called “Shirebrook” supposed to be successful when nobody knows who the captain of that team is???? How can we win a race against other Parish Councils when no one knows what the leader wants to achieve? NO ONE gave the correct answer! This is the first shocker, especially as this information is available on the town website and our mayor is supposedly well known.

By the way- the respondents mentioned two additional names. The fact that I noted them was a mistake. I decided to remove them- so as not to advertise the names of people who do not deserve it.

QUESTION 3

Another red card for Chris Kane and the townspeople. How is a team supposed to win when its leader is anonymous, bland, insipid, with no ambition, no hunger for success, and no feistiness? He is a placeholder when our town needs someone with imagination and hunger for change and success. Shirebrook desperately needs new leadership.

QUESTION 4

Simple question. The vast majority of residents visited the new Town Hall.

QUESTION 5

If we consider this survey representative, then out of 10000 residents, only 400 know how much we paid for Town Hall. For me, this is astonishing and frightening, but this may be a result of how deeply I sit in the town’s financial affairs, while most people just don’t care about the finances of Shirebrook.

QUESTION 6

Again- the lack of knowledge is shocking. 90% of residents don’t even know how many councillors work in STC. Only those who read S247 knew the close number (atm it’s 15, but it should be 16). One respondent said: too many. I agree with that. There should be no more than one councillor per 1000 residents.

QUESTION 7

This is a bit complicated. At the start of this tax year, Shirebrook was in debt. I wrote about it several times. Since most of the respondents weren’t readers of S247, they didn’t know that. Even though half of the respondents suspected that the town was in debt- they just didn’t know the amount. 30 % were surprised by that fact of debt. 12% knew about debt but didn’t remember the number close enough for me to accept it as a correct answer. Only 8% of respondents knew the correct amount.

QUESTION 8

As most residents do not know about the debt, they also do not know that the land next to Lidl was sold, and the income from this transaction was used to pay off the debt. STC has not discussed this move in a single word in STC Chamber. The decision was made by… I don’t know who. I don’t know where. I don’t know when. A total lack of transparency and leadership.

But that is not all that is scandalous about this matter. The purchaser of the land is the BDC. In other words: the taxpayer-funded council bought the land from the other taxpayer-funded council. They just transferred money from one account to another. This is not income- it is creative accounting.

QUESTION 9

Upon hearing the words “shirebrook247.com”, one person simply walked away from me without a word. I don’t know why. Leaving aside this strange move, I must admit that the poll reflected my predictions. The readership of S247 is still unsatisfactory for me- this is mainly the fault of my lack of time. I find time to write- I don’t have time to do anything else. Advertising, competitions, the paper edition, events – that’s all I want to do, but I don’t have the time for the moment.

QUESTION 10

This is where I phrased the question poorly, but I asked it the way I wanted to during the survey. I wanted to ask people who confirmed they had been to S247 how often they visited my blog. This question showed a strange discrepancy with the previous question, but it confirmed my assumption: those who visited S247 often had the most knowledge of the town’s situation.

QUESTION 11

No comment.

END
All in all, it was a cool experience that, unfortunately, consumed a huge amount of time. Time is the one thing in my life that I find lacking. That’s why in the short future, I’ll

invite readers to an online poll (much less labour-intensive). I have a few articles in the queue waiting too long to be published, and I need to post them first. See you next week.

Sylwester Zwierzynski info@shirebrook247.com