Once you have become familiarised with the various survey tasks, you should ask yourself a few key questions before proceeding to the survey stage of the tool-kit. These are:

• Do I have authority to undertake this survey within my market town from the local market town partnership co-ordinator?

• Have I made contact with the local planning authority and other Council officers so that there is an agreed methodology to the work?

• Do I have the material to undertake the survey such as plans, IT, stationary, etc?

• Do I have the right staff resources/ volunteers to undertake the plan?

• Do we have the right skills on the survey Team? (a camera is essential but a keen photographer would add value!)

• Do we have an agreed Team action plan?

• Are the Team familiar with the survey procedures outlined in the guidance in found in the section ‘Taking Action’

• Do I have a timetable and an agreed set of outputs?

If you have YES to all of these questions then you are ready to start the survey.

Step 1

We would recommend that you start with the vitality and viability element to the survey as it will provide you with a good understanding of your town centre and make the distinctiveness survey a more efficient process in relation to data collection.

We would recommend that you undertake each vitality and viability survey task separately on paper. It is also good practice for the team to compare scores to ensure that you are all confident about what and how to do it. This includes taking an overview on how each element scores against the range categories and scores. Once you have built a consensus view, this may also include a conversation with another survey author, you are ready to complete the paper survey and then entering your scores via your computer into the E-survey forms in the Toolkit.

Step 2

Once you have an appreciation of your town centre through your vitality and viability survey, you need to focus on the Distinctiveness element of the survey. This element is more focussed on measuring those ingredients that make market towns distinctive, rather than its overall offer and performance which was covered through the vitality and viability survey. This step is a collective effort you will need to discuss your views and agree on the scoring as it is only entered once.

Naming your Survey

We recommend that you call your survey by the name of the Market Town followed by the date, for example, Morpeth 09.

This will allow you to choose other town surveys from a similar period as comparators. You may wish to consider how often you wish to undertake the Market Town Survey as a regular survey will allow you to monitor your progress in achieving your goals, i.e., you will be able to compare Morpeth 09 with Morpeth 11 and so on.