(27 Mar 2014, 5:45 pm)Dan wrote I moved to Monkwearmouth at the time of the most recent North Sunderland consultation, and almost every bus I was on in that time (of the services affected) were fully stocked with consultation leaflets. The Nexus Travel Shop had copies of the leaflets, and on one occasion I saw a man (can't remember if he was a Nexus employee or a GNE employee, though I'd assume the latter) was handing out said leaflets at Park Lane.

The process should have been the same for the 1/24 consultation. There should have been plenty of opportunities for people to pick a leaflet up, so I really can't explain why people living in the area didn't ever receive a copy of the consultation.

As for a small percentage being returned - the same could be said about people who vote in General Elections. A lot of people will criticise the Government for how the country is run, but I suspect a large number of those people will be those who didn't bother voting...

If the majority of customers don't like a set of proposals, Go North East simply cannot go ahead with them - no matter how much work has gone into designing the proposals. The reason why the online presence was removed for these consultations was to avoid 'spoof responses' - people who barely use the services having a say on something happening which will affect the people who do use the services regularly, it's just not fair. I personally haven't filled out the ANE survey because I don't ever use the services in the consultation, so I have no idea what questions further into the survey say - but the company must have a rough idea of what they want to change without first consulting customers.