THE Roads and Maritime Services will carry out phone polling of the community for the Ellerton Drive Extension Project.
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Queanbeyan City Councillors unanimously agreed to take up the RMS's proposal for phone polling at Wednesday night's ordinary meeting of council.
The polling would be conducted by an independent company and according to the motion "would add validity to the existing community engagement that has already been undertaken for the project."
Polling would consist of a five minute questionnaire and phone number selection would be via a postcode-specific database. The RMS's draft report was estimated to be completed by May 19.
Suggested polling topics included: determining the awareness of the EDE project, awareness of funding, evaluate the level of support and understand any concerns regarding the project.
However, public presentations prior to the meeting highlighted some community concerns about the possible bias and leading nature of the questions.
Katrina Willis from the Queanbeyan Conservation Alliance questioned the benefit of phone polling at this point in time and suggested councillors ask for direct input on the survey questions.
"I have no objection to asking people their views...but I am skeptical about this proposal as it stands and I think councillors should be also. Is this poll designed to question the public consultation to date?," she said.
"What will it add to that process to ask 600, 800 or 1000 people about the suggested topics? The topics are very similar to the RMS survey which was made available during the public consultation process.
"The questions appear to me, bias and in favour of the proposed road."
Jerrabomberra Residents Association president Michael Ziebell was equally cynical about the purpose of the phone polling.
"How does it add validity to the existing community engagement process? There's no explanation," he said.
"We have been saying our concerns [about the EDE] since 2009. We haven't been listened to yet, what's going to be different now?"
Councillor Brian Brown put forward a motion that the questions be endorsed by councillors prior to the study.
"The community can be assured that those questions aren't pushing one way or another," Cr Brown explained.
The motion was approved and councillors will discuss the nature of the survey's questions at a future date.