I have no strong views on the Wooldown as a play area but, after last Friday's article on the axed open meeting and voting, I'd like to share some observations.
Mrs Ring stated that the meeting would have been 'a great opportunity as the Mums of Looe would have been there as well as Looe Town Council, so people would get both perspectives'. Surely, the two perspectives are those of the Mums of Looe and those of the Friends of the Wooldown? I understand that the town council was impartial and just hosting the meeting.
Mrs Ring stated that 'our questionnaires... when returned have been individually handwritten and in some cases signed'. To me this infers that the town council questionnaires were not completed by hand and hence even copied. I put this question to the town clerk and was informed that all the counted questionnaires were completed by hand and contained names and addresses.
I had the opportunity of completing a town council questionnaire but didn't do so. I didn't even know the Mums of Looe questionnaire existed. When I questioned a number of friends and neighbours, they too hadn't heard of the Mums' questionnaire.
I would question if the Mums' poll was balanced in its distribution? Their website gives their membership as 101, so there's nearly half of the Mums' 'yes' vote without canvassing family and friends. From last week's article, the town council questionnaire polled 721 votes against the play area and 22 for the area. The Mums of Looe poll returned 224 votes for the play area and 17 against. If we combine the results from the two polls we still get 75 per cent against the Wooldown proposal.
I applaud the Cornish Times for running an online questionnaire but the process is flawed in that it allows multiple entries. I'm a poor typist but still could have made ten to 15 votes a minute. If I wanted, I could have swung the Wooldown vote to an 'against' result in little over half-an-hour.
Well done, to the Mums of Looe for the efforts but a clinical look at the voting figures still show a hefty proportion of the community against changes to the Wooldown.
Don Drake
Looe