Street Management Survey

In August and September 2008 we asked our Citizens Panel to tell us what they thought about our Street Management Service.

Street Management is responsible for public car parks, pubic toilets and also the Street Warden Service.

The 870 members of the panel were asked to complete a postal survey covering all aspects of these services. It also asked members what we are doing well and what we could do better in the future. 598 panelists responded. Here are some of the answers they gave:

Car Parks

• When deciding where to park, people’s 1^st priority is safety and security.
• In terms of the facilities provided, most important to customers are the level of Lighting (84% of respondents); Availability of Spaces (83%) and Accessibility (77%). The least important were Parent & Child Places (33%) and Disabled Spaces (44%).
• The majority of respondents used two Loughborough car parks most frequently – 36% using the Beehive and 24% using Granby Street.
• When asked to refer to the car park they used most frequently, half of respondents thought level of lighting and accessibility were either good or very good.
• 69.8% of respondents were satisfied overall with the car parks service (a further 18.5% gave a neutral response and only 5% were dissatisfied)

Public Toilets

• 86% of respondents were aware that the Council ran public toilets in the Borough and 67% use them.
• A majority of 67.8% of respondents use toilets in Loughborough Town Centre. The second highest usage was in Syston (12% of respondents).
• Respondents were generally satisfied with the location and accessibility of public toilets.
• 65% were satisfied with cleanliness whilst 11.3% were dissatisfied. There was a similar split in satisfaction regarding the general state of repair of the facilities.
• 82.6% of respondents were satisfied overall with the public toilets provided in Loughborough. Outside of Loughborough satisfaction was 23.3% with 22.5% dissatisfied. However, a large percentage of respondents didn’t answer this questions as usage is a lot lower.
• There was no single, stand out reason why people don’t use public toilets but the main one’s were “They are not kept clean and tidy”; “I never use public toilets” and “Don’t know where they are”.
• 17% of respondents would use public toilets if they were improved.

Street Wardens

• 94% of respondents agreed that there is a need to reduce environmental crime.
• 82% support the introduction of Street Wardens for this purpose.
• Around 80 – 90% of respondents considered it appropriate to issue fixed penalties for the different environmental and parking issues.
• Of the different issues, respondents saw vandalism as the most important and graffiti as the least important.
• Around 80 – 90% of respondents felt it was either very or fairly important to tackle the various environmental crimes. The highest response was again, unsurprisingly Vandalism (92.8% of respondents).
• 48.8% of respondents were satisfied overall with the Street Warden Service. A further 35% gave a neutral response and 9% were dissatisfied.