Nine out of ten Hackney residents happy with borough

Hackney. Pic:sludgegulper

Hackney. Pic:sludgegulper

Almost nine out of ten Hackney residents are satisfied with the borough, according to a new research conducted for Hackney Council.  The figures show a substantial increase  over the level in the last equivalent survey in 2005, when only 72 per cent of local people said they were satisfied with the area.

The research, by Ipsos MORI, also revealed that three quarters of Hackney residents are satisfied with the Council, which is 21 percentage points more than in 2005.

The most significant increase concerns the satisfaction with the quality of the Council services, up from 50 per cent in 2005 to 71 per cent in the recent survey.

Major improvements in the area also include the opening of four Overground stations and the building of 2,300 new homes, as well as a decrease in the number of crimes per year by 11,000 over the past ten years. Hackney may also have benefitted from the feel good factor of being one of the five designated Olympic boroughs last year and its proximity to the events in the Olympic Park.

A spokesperson for Hackney Council said: “We are pleased that satisfaction with Hackney as a place to live and the way the Council runs services both continue to rise.

“Services in Hackney have been transformed over the past 10 years, whilst freezing Council Tax for the last eight years, with new schools, some of the cleanest streets in London, and high quality libraries and leisure centres.”

Ninety per cent of the interviewees agreed that Hackney is a place where people from different background get on well together, an increase from 83 per cent in 2005.

The Council spokesperson added: “There has been huge demographic change in Hackney since the last survey in 2005. It is important for the Council to know how residents feel about the area they live in and the services they receive so that we can improve and plan effectively based on what our residents are saying.”

Fifty nine per cent of residents agree that the Council is helpful when you contact it, an increase from 45 per cent in 2005.

“We are living in very challenging times and it is more important than ever that we are able to support our residents and ensure they know how to access the services we provide,” the Council spokesperson said.

The research was conducted via face to face interviews with 1,016 Hackney residents aged over 16 from January to March 2013.

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