Residents of Forfar are not happy with us knowing their business

Residents of a small town in Scotland have been left slightly perplexed as to why an agency in Chiswick is carrying out a community safety survey on behalf of the Angus Community Safety Partnership.

Whilst Chiswick residents are well acquainted with the notion that people in distant towns make decisions that affect their everyday lives, those in Forfar are not.

Questionnaires dropped through the letter boxes of households throughout Forfar didn’t ask for names or addresses, “so how does the agency know to what area our answers relate?” said one angry resident who called the survey ‘a waste of money’.

Speaking to local newspaper, Dispatch, the resident went onto say, "Does the local authority have so much money that it can spend it on ridiculous projects such as this? In these times of economic hardship for so many people they could have reduced the council tax bills instead of paying out sums of money to a London-based market research agency to seek our views on community safety."

The accent would certainly be different, but the perception that people in offices based far away making plans for our town isn’t so much.

May 29, 2009