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Chamber poll shows support for Garden project

A poll of members of Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce on the City Garden Project has shown that 64% of all members who responded support and would vote for the project.

36% of responding members would vote for retaining Union Terrace Gardens while the views of non-members who also responded to the survey were almost evenly split with 51% in favour of the City Garden as opposed to 49% wanting to retain the gardens as they are.

Click here for the survey results.

The opinion poll was issued by email to more than 2000 individuals (including 1200 members) and brought in 597 responses within a three-day period. It was open to residents of both the city and the shire to gather AGCC member opinion only – the results are not eligible for, and will not be included in, the official referendum being issued later this month by Aberdeen City Council.

It is the first of three surveys which the Chamber will conduct over the next month; the second will be issued on February 17 after the voting packs have been sent out by the Council and the third will be carried out at the end of the month, immediately prior to the closing of the referendum on February 29.

Chamber Chief Executive Bob Collier said: “The poll achieved a very high response rate and the result gives a clear indication that the majority of members responding support the proposals for the garden. Although only residents of the city will be able to vote in the official referendum we opened the poll up to people from both the city and shire because we wanted to get a view from across our membership on how they stand on this.

“The poll itself was conducted by an independent survey facility so we are confident that the results are both impartial and accurate. This batch of results reinforces the message that we have consistently had from our members that a majority of them support the City Garden Project and would like it to proceed. At a meeting last week of our Chamber Policy Council and Board, which comprises 39 members democratically elected to represent all sectors of the wider membership, the Chamber’s ongoing support for the City Garden was ratified. This poll reinforces the message that the majority of members continues to agree with the view which their policy council took.

“Over the course of the next month we will repeat the survey twice more to see if opinion changes and is influenced by the campaigning which will take place both for and against the project. Those results will also be published at the close of each survey.

”As always, we encourage all our eligible members to get involved in the process and to register their votes in this referendum – whatever their views might be.”

Key findings:

64% of all members of the Chamber (City and Shire) would vote for the City Garden Project design, whilst 36% would vote for retaining Union Terrace Gardens.

The survey closed at 17.00 on 31st January 2012 with having received 597 responses, of which:

o 74% were members of the Chamber

o 59% of those members were residents of Aberdeen City (and therefore entitled to vote)

o Of these members of AGCC who were residents of the City 95% intended to exercise their vote, of which:

o 62% were in favour of the City Gardens project design

o 38% would vote for retaining the Union Terrace Gardens

o Support was slightly higher in the shire:

o 66% were in favour of the City Gardens project design

o 34% would vote for retaining the Union Terrace Gardens

In both the city and shire, non-member votes produced similar and equally divided results at 49%:51%.

The complete Opinion Poll result can be viewed at www.agcc.co.uk

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