The Parish Council initiated a Parish Meeting on the 4th November 1996 to determine the interest within the Parish for an Appraisal. The result was the formation of a Steering Group consisting of: Sue Baxter (Secretary), the late Alan Ashby, Jackie Adcock, Paul Coles, Pat Griggs, Judith Grant, Jim Hosegood, Richard Jones, David Sykes, Shane Vallance and myself as Chairman.

The resulting Parish questionnaire was distributed in May/June 1997. We were greatly encouraged by the fact that out of the approximately 180 delivered, 156 households returned completed questionnaires. 355 people responded and this showed that an unusually high percentage of our Parish had become involved.

This report, the result of all the work, highlights some interesting points relating to this Parish. The Steering Group will now be looking at the results in detail to suggest ways in which the wishes of the people of Inwardleigh can be realised.

A big thank-you to all of you in the Parish who took the time to complete the questionnaire and supplied comments, all of which have been noted and will be included in our deliberations.

I would like to thank the members of the Steering Group for giving freely of their time and effort in preparing, distributing and collecting the questionnaires. The enthusiasm with which they all approached the work was very gratifying. Thank you also to those members who hosted many a meeting in their own homes, and a particular thank-you to Sue, our Secretary, whose considerable work has done much to ensure a successful conclusion to this project.

Due to the grants available and help from Devon County Council in the form of printing and analysing of both the questionnaires and this report, the cost that had to be met by the Parish Council was £150. Our thanks to the members of the Community Council of Devon, particularly Helen Vines, Sue Murphy and Sarah Taragon; without their help we would not have been able to complete this exercise.

We hope you will all find this report interesting and that it proves beneficial to our Parish.

John Rattenbury.