Visible evidence that the survey forms were never delivered as claimed

Parks and Countryside and the delivery firm claim that 9,982 survey forms were delivered to all of the 454 streets that lie within 800 metres of the Moor’s perimeter. And they tell us that they’ve received back 587 forms from 155 streets. That means that 299 streets never returned a form. Statistician Paul Marchant has worked out that the likelihood of that happening is less that 13 in a billion. But scientific evidence like this doesn’t impress Leeds City Council. Neither are they impressed by the testimony of local residents who insist they haven’t received a form preferring to believe the delivery company. At this point most people would give up trying to persuade the council, but local residents hereabouts are a determined bunch of people, and one of  them has produced this very revealing map. The red dots on it represent the 155 streets which according to Parks and Countryside returned forms. If you click on the map to enlarge it, you’ll see that the red dots are clustered in the Hyde Park area around the Harolds. This suggests that forms may have been delivered to these streets.  Then there’s a sprinkling of red dots in the North Hyde Park area and the northern half of Woodhouse, and a very light sprinking in Little Woodhouse.  These could be forms returned by people who picked them up at the drop-in sessions. Finally, there are no dots at all in the southern half of Woodhouse which strongly indicates that no forms were dleivered to this area.

It would be good if this additional evidence  persuaded the council to abandon the consultation exercise. But experience suggests that this is unlikely.