The questionnaire data was collected at 16 different sites around the east Midlands. The selection was made from a candidate list provided by members of the East Midlands Regional Biodiversity Action Forum and selected to represent a geographical spread and a spectrum from the “wild” to the “urban”. These included sites in the Peak District national park, nature reserves, country parks, woodlands, town/city parks and small-scale local green spaces.
Over 460 interviews were carried out. The interviewers asked people to respond as they left each site following a visit. A target of 30 interviews was set as a minimum. A range of people was wanted, so the interviewers tried to balance the age, gender and other attributes of the sample as they selected people. The questions were, as described above, devised as a set of statements which people were asked to agree or disagree with using a seven-point scale. The data was analysed using the analysis package SPSS. The analysis examined the make-up of the sample in comparison to the poulation as a whole, to see who visits these sites and who does not, then the main attitudinal questions were examined in terms of different demographic variables. Those that proved to be significant as univariate statistics (with a Kruskall Wallis P value of less than 0.05) were examined in more depth. A factor analysis was also carried out across all the attitudinal data to see what groupings of themes emerged. Ten factors were identified, such as “lifestyle”, “relax/nature”, “welcome” or “childhood/community”.
The green spaces used in the survey were chosen to be very different in character. Figures 2-5 show some of the sites.