The man given the task of providing Hayes residents with a town centre they can be proud of has revealed the first results of his survey.

David Brough is chairman of the Hayes Town Partnership and set himself the task, aided by local ward councillors, of finding out if his vision matched that of the public.

Several hundred questionnaires were printed and distributed around the town, and the first 120 returned have now been collected and their findings analysed.

They found the most popular reason for visiting Hayes was for shopping, with banking coming in second, and meeting friends third.

The most popular form of transport to get there was bus.

The majority of respondents said they would come more often if there was a wider range of shops, while others raised concerns about a lack of safety caused by drinkers, drug abusers and beggars.

More than 70 people said they would never come in to the town after dark, again because of safety fears, and of those who do, getting a take-away was the most common reason.

The partnership's priorities for reducing crime, removing litter and graffiti and attracting more shops were overwhelmingly supported, while residents used the 'any other comments' box to call for better facilities and better parking.

Mr Brough was delighted with the results but said: "It is good to see that we are on the right track but we need still more responses from the public to make sure that we get a good cross-section of views.

"When we asked people to name their top three choices, reducing crime and improving community safety came out way ahead of all other priorities.

"It was more than double the support for the next most favoured choices - widening the range of shops, improving the look of the town and reducing litter and rubbish dumping."

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