North Yorkshire priorities must be taken seriously ahead of unitary council - The Yorkshire Post says

Residents have condemned the quality of a study called Let’s Talk Local to shape the area’s new unitary authority.

The exercise was meant to focus on what is important to residents of different communities before the new council will deliver services including adult social care, housing, waste collection, transport, planning, community safety, children’s services, education and leisure from April 1.

Sowerby resident Helen Tomlinson told North Yorkshire County Council’s executive that the survey was “a jumbled confusion of issues” which did not give the public the information they needed and had failed to include the authority’s largest spending area, adult social care, among a list of priorities for respondents to rank. Anne Seex, a former leading local government standards expert, also told the executive she had been “appalled by this poor quality, amateurish process”.

A spokeswoman, though, said Let’s Talk Local had never been intended to be used as a traditional survey and that the questions had been tested by staff from all eight councils in the county.

This newspaper has already stated that the new authority is an opportunity to create a public service ethos which prioritises issues such as affordable housing, digital connectivity and investment in market towns. However, residents need to know that whatever matters most to them is being taken seriously.