Public toilets priority from latest survey

THE Toowoomba Regional Council has released its biennial community satisfaction survey to the public, and it’s safe to say the results are interesting reading.

The report by IRIS Research was based on the results from 831 residents who varied in age, gender and location.

The vast majority of respondents (483) were 65 or older, far more than IRIS Research needed for the survey to be an ideal cross-section of the Toowoomba region.

As a result, the results was weighted to ensure it reflected the whole community. 1. FACILITIES IMPROVE

The council generally improved in the quality of its facilities in 2019 compared to 2017, with seven of 11 sectors (museums, sports grounds, swimming pools, town halls, skate parks, indoor sports centres and public toilets) all noticing an increase in satisfaction.

The TRC’s top facilities remained its parks and open spaces, as well as its libraries.

But the report highlighted public toilets as the highest priority for facility improvement, scoring the lowest overall yet being one of the most highly used. 2. DIVIDE IN REGION

One of the more noteworthy trends across the survey was how consistently less satisfied rural residents were compared with their urban

counterparts.

Just 66 per cent of rural residents were satisfied with the council’s overall performance, compared with 74 per cent of urban locals. 3. WATER NOT TASTY

A statistic more interesting in a contextual sense was the fact that the taste of the bulk water supply wasn’t well-received by residents surveyed.

While respondents were reasonably happy with both the pressure and odour of their water – receiving average scores of 7.2 and 6.9 – they gave water taste just 6.2 on average.

This comes just a few years after Toowoomba was honoured for having the best tasting water in the country, and actually competed for a world title.