This report highlights the important local issues and recommendations. A full report showing all the questionnaire answers will be available to order, to save costs, from the Town Council Offices or from members of the group.

• The 1991 census had 1409 households in Buckfastleigh with 2300 people.
• 1320 people lived in the households that completed the survey.
• 1104 people completed 578 questionnaires, 509 males and 595 females.
• Not all admitted their age but of those who did - 127 were under 21, 242 were under 40, 318 were under 60, 315 were over 60. This is considered a very good result for a town of our size.
• The number of people under 21 completing the form is considered excellent.

The report follows the normal convention by giving the results as percentage figures. Wherever these are used the figures are the proportion of those people who answered that particular question.

Housing

Recommendation
As with most towns of this size the need is for a mixture of housing types. Consideration should always be given as to whether the existing balance is right before permissions are given. New developments should provide solutions to parking problems in the existing areas that adjoin new developments.

Other Answers

• renovate existing buildings
• with good sized gardens
• with garages
• for low income single people
• warden controlled family housing
• quality housing for private purchase
• ecologically friendly
• don't encourage low income families
• cater in proportion for all ages/income levels
• how long do we wait to be allocated a house locally
• for people in employment with disposable income

Employment

Buckfastleigh has for too long had a very high unemployment rate, the striking thing about the results is how many of the unemployed failed to fill in a questionnaire when it could be argued that they had the most to gain by expressing their needs.

28% had no qualifications, 64% of the 796 answering the question were not interested in vocational training opportunities.

Most people work within the parish and a significant number of those work at home. Of those who travel to work nearly half are a daily travelling distance.

The hours people work was surprising because we thought there would be a significant number of people working part-time. In fact most worked full-time.

Although most people wanted training in Management, Computing and skilled/craft related occupations, local employers are not seeking these skills. There appears to be a need to ensure that new local industries will address the skills that people might be aquiring. There may also be a need to ensure that training councillors advise potential trainees on the skills that can be used locally.

Adult learning and training provision are seen as essential in ensuring that local people are able to take advantage of opportunities either now or in the future most people said that Buckfastleigh was the most accessible (93.4%) followed by Ashburton (80.4%). 65.9% could get to Newton Abbot with 40.4% able to travel to Torquay.

We asked how local, adult learning provision was rated.
Good - 13%
Reasonable - 34%
Poor - 23%
No view - 30%