South Hams District Council have released the results from the consultation about the recent proposal to create one new council with West Devon Council.

There is an Overview and Scrutiny meeting taking place today after the eight week consultation to discuss the results.

Despite the proposals being framed as ‘controversial’, only 3% of the South Hams population and only 2.5% of the West Devon population responded to the consultation.

This could have been done either through an online survey, through the telephone survey or a paper survey.

The majority of responses came from the councils’ online survey which grouped together with the telephone and paper survey showed that in the South Hams 14.02% said ‘yes’ and 85.98% said ‘no’ the the proposal.

In West Devon 44.54% said ‘yes’ and 55.46% said ‘no’ which consequently means that with both councils combined only 23.61% said ‘yes’ and 76.39% said ‘no’ to the idea of a combined council.

However, the independent telephone survey which was conducted to give a genuinely representative view from residents across both councils showed different results.

This survey showed that 41.4% said ‘yes’ and 58.6% said ‘no’ in the South Hams; while 61.1% said ‘yes’ and 38.9% said ‘no’ in West Devon.

Collectively this survey showed that 51.15% said ‘yes’ and 48.85% said ‘no’ across both councils.

To gather results over this eight week period the council sent out almost 70,000 postcards, one to every household. They held over 27 events in public places across South Hams and West Devon-often at prearranged events so that councillors could talk to people who do not normally have a reason to engage with local authority in this way.

Councillors and Officers went to over 30 Town and Parish Council meetings to enquire how residents felt.

Additionally, the council used press releases, social media and videos to promote the consultation which reached over 450,000 people across Facebook and Twitter.

Cllr. John Tucker, Leader of South Hams District Council said, “In South Hams we are disappointed that despite extensive consultation 97% of the population did not take the opportunity to have their say. Of the 3% of people who did, we do know that the majority in South Hams are unhappy with proposals to form a new council.

“Most of the responses were made via the online survey, however we also carried out a statistically representative telephone survey which gave a very different view indicating a much higher level of support in favour of the single Council proposal.

“I am pleased that these results will now be scrutinised by the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Panel this week in advance of our council meeting on 31 October.”

The role of the Overview and Scrutiny Committees is to look at how the consultation was conducted, scrutinise the results and refer their conclusions to Full Council. Details of this meeting will follow shortly.