So where do Haslemere people prefer to park and shop? And what would the impact of another increase in parking charges be?

We can’t be too sure as our survey this month drew only a small number of responses – but if there’s even a degree of accuracy in the results so far, then the trends are a concern.

Sixty five percent of respondents said they would buy less in Haslemere if short term parking charges were increased. The other 35% said their shopping habits would not change.

A full 88% forecast that other people would buy less in the town as a result of any increase.

Unsurprisingly, the High Street and Chestnut Avenue car parks are the most popular among shoppers, with 70% using the High Street and 65% Chestnut Avenue at least once a month. But higher frequency users tend to use Chestnut Avenue.

More that 80% said they had shopped in the town centre in the past week, compared with just over 50% in Wey Hill. Nearly 80% had shopped online in the past week.

We asked where else and how often people shopped. All said they bought online at least once a month. Other popular alternatives for one or more shopping sessions were Liphook (66% of respondents), Guildford (65%) Godalming (60%) and Petersfield (50%). Chichester, Portsmouth and Farnham were popular choices for one or two shopping trips a year.

We are extremely grateful to Chamber member Report Genius (Theo Sahlsberg) who allowed us to test-drive his soon-to-be-released cloud-based analytical tool Report Gorilla, developed in Haslemere, which allowed us to delve more deeply into the survey results and to extract a more comprehensive range of reports.