I RECENTLY received an e-mail from Wirral Council inviting residents to read and respond to the council's future housing needs strategy.
Having taken the link to their website, I was faced with the task of downloading over 30 files, including a 263-page report prepared by Manchester based Planning Consultants, Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners.
The report itself is a document understandable only by those working in the planning consultancy sector and reads as a list of paragraphs, summaries and data I fear laypersons like myself will be unable to process.
As a member of the Wirral branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, I am deeply concerned about Wirral’s future housing requirements, yet I am unable to make any meaningful contribution to the survey I am invited to take part in, because I have no way of interpreting the mass of data offered to me.
How many other Wirral residents are facing the same dilemma I wonder?
I appreciate the opportunity to contribute an opinion, but I cannot contribute if the language is impossible to decode.
If laypersons cannot interpret the data then they cannot contribute, making the whole exercise as a “public consultation” a complete failure.
N Lauro by e-mail
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