Amidale Council Community Consultation Results- Analysis (questioning the basis of 84.5% support)

DOES 84.5% REALLY REPRESENT COMMUNITY SUPPORT FOR THE RAIL TRAIL?

Armidale Regional Council says its community consultation produced 84.5% support for the proposed New England Rail Trail.

But an independent examination of Council's own released material raises important questions about what that figure actually represents.

Some key issues:

Council identified only 396 supportive responses from within the Armidale Regional LGA.
There were 549 supportive responses from outside the LGA — 153 more than the identified local supporters.
Another 618 supportive responses were classified “Address Unknown”.
Council's “Address Unknown” category is not simply people whose location was unknown. Council says it also includes outside-region and business addresses.

Our examination is finding interstate and overseas respondents among the submissions, including people expressing an intention to visit the region to cycle the proposed trail.

Such submissions may be useful evidence of potential tourism demand, but that is not the same thing as evidence of local community support.

Council's headline percentage also reduces submissions to Support versus Oppose, when the reasons people gave—particularly directly affected landowners and other stakeholders—are equally important.
The real question is:

84.5% support from whom — and support for what?

The arithmetic may be correct. The issue is whether combining local residents, outside respondents, prospective cycling tourists, businesses, organisations and hundreds classified as Address Unknown into one percentage provides a fair and meaningful picture of community support within the Armidale Regional Council area.

We need transparent, disaggregated analysis—not simply a headline percentage.

Dr Siri Gamage
Regional Rail Advocate
Preliminary analysis of ARC community consultation results