Who Contributed
Our survey is intended to aid discussions on what we should be doing to respond to the climate crisis. It does not claim to be representative of the whole population of Chesterfield and North East Derbyshire. The results in this section provide an indication of the extent to which survey participants are similar to the wider population, based on the results of the last Census. The population of Chesterfield was slightly higher than that in the district of North East Derbyshire (NED). However, our survey had about half as many responses again from people in NED compared to Chesterfield, so the latter Borough is under-represented in these results.
There were also substantially more responses from females than males. In the 2011 Census, 51% of the population across the two areas and aged 16 and over were female.
It is more difficult to assess differences by age group as the categories adopted in the survey do not quite align with those used in the Census. The biggest differences were in the substantially lower percentage of people in their late twenties to early forties and an over-representation of those in their mid-sixties to mid-seventies.
| Survey | Census | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Age Group | % | Age Group | % |
| Under 18 | 1.3 | 16-17 | 1.6 |
| 18-25 | 2.6 | 18-24 | 10.0 |
| 26-45 | 13.7 | 25-44 | 31.8 |
| 46-65 | 42.0 | 45-64 | 37.3 |
| 66-75 | 33.6 | 65-74 | 7.5 |
| Over 75 | 6.8 | 75 and over | 11.9 |
Perhaps the most important issue of representativeness is whether the survey was completed by people who were members of environmental groups. Well over half the people participating in the survey said they were not members.
Those saying they were members of other environmental groups were asked to say which groups these were. A total of thirty-five different groups were noted. These ranged from national wildlife and environmental groups (e.g. Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Worldwide Fund for Nature, Woodland Trust, Surfers Against Sewage), similar but more local groups (e.g. Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust, Don Catchment River Trust, Trees for Chesterfield), religious community groups (e.g. A Rocha, Dronfield Baptist Church Eco Church Group, Christian Climate Action) and those concerned with campaigning on particular issues (e.g. Eckington Against Fracking, Plastic Free Chesterfield, Chesterfield Cycle Campaign).
Those contributing to the survey were asked whether they would like to receive further information and the results are shown in the following chart.
