Shipston residents have their say on town council communications

Residents have taken the opportunity to have their say on how the town council communicates via a survey published a couple of months ago.

Over 100 people responded to the survey, which asked people’s views on the Shipston Forum, Shipstononline website, and the council’s social media pages. Overall, people seem to be generally happy with the way the council communicates and there were some useful suggestions about what sort of thing residents would like to see more of in the future. 

The headline results show that people like to access information in different ways, which supports having both a paper-based and online approach to communications. While 43% of respondents look at the website at least monthly, 17% never look at it. Social media is an increasingly popular way to find out more about council news, with more than half of the respondents regularly looking at the council’s Facebook site and/or twitter feed and over 90% of people finding the information to be useful. 

The Shipston Forum is well received, with 100% of respondents saying that they find it useful and almost three quarters of people wanting it to stay in its current format. Over 70% of respondents read at least two thirds of the magazine and the most popular pages are the news, Town Council news and medical centre updates. 

The Communications Working Group is looking at the findings and suggestions in more detail, before making recommendations to the council in the next couple of months. In the meantime, a way forward has already been agreed for social media, with the Town Clerk updating Facebook and Twitter with planned events while two councillors will share responsibility for reactive or time-sensitive posts. If you spot something that you think residents should be aware of, please notify Peter White or Dan Scobie via email (see details on page 15).

To view the website and download electronic copies of the Shipston Forum, visit www.shipstononline.org. Find out the latest news from the town council on Facebook via www.facebook.com/shipston.council or on twitter @shipstononline.