Regarding the Dryden Road consultation, in the new report just released: please explain clearly & simply what metrics has been used in order to tell robustly indicate the difference between respondents who have used EX2 as their postcode location.
Example: how have you been able to tell the difference between someone living in Alphington (EX2) to someone living off Barrack Road (EX2), such as IP location information?
The consultation did not collect respondents’ full postcodes or any other location-identifying information beyond the first part of their postcode (for example, EX2). Under UK data protection principles, organisations should only collect personal data that is necessary for the purpose of the consultation. For the Dryden Road consultation, the stated purpose of collecting postcode information was to help understand where respondents came from and assess the reach of the consultation. The questionnaire explained that postcode information would be used to support outreach and inclusivity analysis. The questionnaire asked respondents to provide only the first half of their postcode and did not request full postcode information.
As a result, the analysis does not distinguish between respondents living in different parts of the EX2 postcode district, such as Alphington, Heavitree, Wonford, St Leonard’s or properties located close to Barrack Road. All respondents who entered “EX2” are grouped within the same postcode district category.
The consultation report used postcode information only at this broad geographic level to understand the distribution of respondents and demonstrate whether feedback had been received from communities local to the scheme. The report found that a significant proportion of respondents were from the EX2 postcode area, indicating strong participation from residents living within the wider area surrounding Dryden Road.
No analysis was undertaken using full postcode data because this information was not collected. Similarly, IP address information was not used to identify where respondents lived, nor was it used to distinguish between locations within EX2. The report’s geographic analysis is therefore based solely on the postcode district information voluntarily provided by respondents through the survey.
In summary, we can identify responses originating from the EX2 postcode district as a whole, but cannot differentiate between individual neighbourhoods, streets or properties within EX2. Therefore, it is not possible from the consultation data to distinguish between someone living in, for example, Alphington and someone living closer to Barrack Road, if both respondents entered “EX2” as their postcode location.