During the final months of 2025 AIDA ran a Community Attitude Survey. It was a repeat of questions about attitudes to range of local issues and adds to a set of community surveys first undertaken in 1983, and repeated in 1990, 1999, 2015, and 2020, creating a shared record of community views over more than four decades.
The survey results bring together both the long view and the present moment. The first section looks at patterns and changes over time, drawing on the full 42-year dataset to identify trends across nine key themes such as development, environment, tourism, safety, and community life. The second section summarises the 2025 survey responses, capturing what people are saying now about the future of the district.
Last year’s survey continues AIDA’s long tradition of listening to local voices about what matters most in its area of interest – Urquhart Bluff to Eastern View.
The response to this year’s survey was not as strong as it has been previously despite being widely promoted to AIDA members and the wider community through local Facebook pages, the Surf Coast Times, and flyers around the village. Maybe this was due to people being “surveyed out”?
Together, the results reflect a community that cares deeply about place, pays close attention to change, and wants decisions about its future to be grounded in evidence, lived experience, and long-standing shared values.