AIDA COMMUNITY SURVEY 2020

In a globalised world, it is important that the voice of local communities is heard. AIDA’s 2020 Community Survey, conducted during the last quarter of 2020, was designed to gauge our community’s opinions on a range of key issues that are important to the future of our coastal townships. AIDA is pleased to now make the results of this survey widely available (scroll down for links).

We believe it is vital to know our community’s views on its built and natural environment, its facilities, its economy, what it loves and enjoys, what are perceived as future challenges and how they might be confronted, so that this knowledge can be used to take actions to protect and preserve what is most valued about our area and to help design a resilient future forthis place we love.

This year’s community attitude survey adds to the longitudinal data AIDA collected in 1983, 1990, 1999 and 2015. This year we added some new questions and discontinued a few questions that we thought had become redundant. This allowed space for community members to reflect on the implications of the focus on the Great Ocean Road with the creation of the new Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority and the Covid pandemic. (The full longitudinal survey data set is included on page 24 of this report, and a PDF of all responses can be accessed here.)

During this survey, we were particularly interested in hearing from people in the community who were not AIDA members but who wished to have their say. This was the case for more than half of the 398 respondents. The survey response rate was particularly pleasing (as too was the high positive response to the idea of surveys as a mechanism for community engagement around critical issues and decisions). What was even more pleasing was to find that the wider community’s attitudes are very much aligned with those of AIDA members, meaning there is strong support in the community to protect and preserve the low-key, coastal- village atmosphere of our townships and our environment.

This year, thanks to AIDA committee members Suzanne Cavanagh and Chris Ryan, the data has been divided into six themes so that it presents a more understandable and compelling picture of the community’s attitudes to:

AIDA will share the survey widely and use the data to inform our activities and advocacy with local and state government and government agencies. Making this data fully public will ensure that other community groups will be able to use it so they can consider community views in their own activities.

Our thanks to Ian Godfrey for his analysis of the longitudinal data and to Nan McNab for designing and producing this beautiful publication of the survey results.

We thank everyone who gave their time and thoughtful responses to the survey. We also thank the many local organisations that helped us to promote the opportunity to respond to the survey.

I heartily encourage you to read the full article containing  the comprehensive analysis of the survey results and the insights obtained from it, which can be obtained from the following link:  AIDA_Survey_Results.