Hi
yes, you're absolutely right about impacts on residents. The negative social impacts, in my opinion, probably outweigh the environmental impacts in such a small area such as Windermere / Ambleside.
However, a few reasons for not including residents.
1. I surveyed residents last year for a previous study and those responses will the used again as part of this study (I actually put a short survey on this message board).
2. Residents would be exempt from any road pricing scheme / congestion charge, in which case implementation of such a policy would not affect them (with regards to road use, not economic or social impacts)
3. The aim is to look at visitor attitudes in order to try to reduce traffic but not negatively affect the local economy. Visitors will not consider economic issues to the local area when responding, they will only consider the aspects that directly affect their visit. Not the consequences.
Residents, and more specifically business owners will be influenced by many factors and as I discovered last year many refuse to accept that traffic is a problem in the area. In other words you get responses which are basically 'no votes'.
4. I found that the locals are very mistrusting of these sorts of surveys, I don't know whether the LDNPA or CCC have been a bit underhand in the past but my last survey met with with a lot of anger.
This is not a reason for not surveying residents, it was an observation we made last year and when we decided on tis project it made more sense to target visitors specifically as we had already obtained a lot of data from residents.
Anyway, hope that explains why the survey is compiled the way it is, and thanks for completing it. Most appreciated
Chris
I've attached a picture that you may find quite amusing, I certainly did!