Visitor surveys

Visitor surveys are used to understand who visits sites, and why. The most recent survey carried out by the Countryside Service at Dinton Pastures was back in 1997.

The survey was conducted with all park leavers during the first twelve minutes of each hour, between the 25 August to 31 August, this being the last full week of the summer holiday. The survey was carried out on those using the main car park only, leaving by car, on foot or cycle.

The main results found by this survey were that, most visitors to Dinton Pastures were repeat visitors, who had visited the park before, with over 80% visiting the site at least once every month, throughout the year.

Most visits lasted between 1 – 2 hours with walking, the children's play area, dog walking, feeding the birds and visiting the café proving the most popular activities once here. If anything could have improved their visit to the site, better weather featured at the top of the list, closely followed by more maps and signs! It was also interesting to note that a high percentage of visitors lived within a short distance of the site.

Since this survey, more maps and walk routes have been introduced, but unfortunately we still haven't been able to sort out the weather.

The main problem with this survey is with the cross section of people that were questioned. With surveys only completed by people using the main entrance you miss the recreational sport users of the site, e.g. the sailing and golf club users who use their own car park, and the fishermen who use the anglers car park. The sample group was also relatively small with 97 surveys completed and only carried out over a relatively short time.

To view the original survey please use the link on the left.

A survey of your own

If carrying out a survey of your own at one of Wokingham Borough Council's Countryside Service sites we ask you to let us know what you will be doing. We may be able to offer you some assistance and be able to compare your results with similar surveys. Any feedback gained about our sites, or us, from surveys is useful to us, helping us to provide the best service we can, so please do e-mail or post any results to us at:

Wokingham Borough Council Countryside Service
Dinton Pastures Country Park
Davis Street
Hurst
Berkshire
RG10 OTH
Email: countryside@wokingham.gov.uk

When designing a survey of your own, think about what it is you actually want to know, and what other information could be useful when examining your results. For example if you want to know what improvements could be made to the site it may also be useful to know if they would be willing to pay for these improvements via a higher car parking charge or entrance fee!

There's quite an art to designing a good survey. It needs careful thought beforehand to make sure you are not leading people into saying what you want to hear. Good luck with any survey you may be doing and remember to show the Countryside Service any work which may be of interest to us.