Planning Surgeries – Customer Satisfaction Survey
Guidance on the Planning system can be obtained through Planning surgeries which are held weekly in Crowborough and Hailsham/Polegate. Appointments last for 30 minutes and need to be pre-booked. For more details on this service go to the section ‘Do I need Planning Permission?’
This survey commenced in August 2007 and is currently on-going.
The following results were received from 17 users of the service.
Waiting for an appointment.
We asked how long people had to wait to get an appointment for this popular service.
Generally people have to book over 2 weeks in advance and some had waited more than 4 weeks. Only where there had been a cancellation did customers get a quicker appointment.
However when asked if this waiting time was acceptable 70% felt that it was.
The Venues
We asked about various aspects of the meeting venue such as lighting and privacy.
To date 70% of the responses were from Crowborough appointments. Most people found all aspects of this venue satisfactory except that two people were concerned about the lack of privacy.
The 30% who had visited the Hailsham Offices had no criticism of the venue at all.
Background information
We asked if customers had been asked to supply information prior to the meeting and/or to bring extra material on the day.
24% had been asked to supply information before the meeting, of those that had not, only 2 people thought this may have been helpful.
However nearly 50% had been asked to bring photographs etc to the meeting and another 35% felt that this would have been useful.
The Discussion
We asked about the duration of the appointment, the knowledge of the Planning Officer and a record of the discussion.
94% felt that the 30 minutes allowed was about right.
88% felt that the Planning Officer was adequately informed and experienced to deal with their queries. Of the two customers who were not satisfied with the Planning Officer one was a householder application and one a major development.
77% were given some notes of the discussion but those that had not also felt that this would have been useful.
Overall satisfaction
60% found the meeting to be ‘extremely helpful’ and the other 40% thought it was ‘quite helpful’ . Everyone said they would use the service again.
Type of application
We asked what type of application or development the discussion referred to:
3 Major development, 11 Householder applications, 3 other.
Personal Details
We collect certain personal details in order to ensure that everyone is treated fairly.
Of the 17 people responding to this survey all are white British.
13 men and 3 women
The ages range from 25 to 64 with the greatest frequency being in the 35 – 44 age range.
None of the respondents are disabled
Additional Comments
Very helpful
An extremely helpful and informative service
As this is a listed building application it would have been helpful to have met with the Council’s Listed Building Officer at the same time
