Q1 DRAFT ANSWER: The ratio of employed people in the Working age population of Yateley (3 Wards) is 0.66 or 2 persons working to one person not working. The ratio for Yateley is about 5% higher than the nationa figure. Working age population is defined in the NOMIS Official Labour Market Statistics as all males aged 16-65 and all females aged 16-60. Economically inactive people include the retired, full time students, those looking after families/homes, the permanently sick and disabled. A person whole is looking for work but is not able to start within two weeks is still classed as economically inactive.

 

Employment	Yateley East	Yateley North	Yateley West	Frogmore	Civil Parish	HART	SEERA	GB
Population	5174	5080	5147		15401	83505
Working Age	3279	3355	3580		10214
Working Age:Population	0.63	0.66	0.70		0.66	0.64	0.00	0.61
Employed	2631	2824	3079		8534
Employed:Working age	0.80	0.84	0.86		0.84	0.82	0.00	0.62
Working Males	1485	1563	1680		4728
Working Females	1146	1261	1399		3806
Females:Males	0.77	0.81	0.83		0.80

 

Source: Census 2001: sum of ward numbers may not equal those for the Civil Parish due to consideration of confidentiality of individuals. Frogmore not yet added.

Q1 NOTES: Obtain NOMIS date for Frogmore & Darby Green Ward (ACTION)

Q2 DRAFT ANSWER: About 76% of Yateley people commuted out of the town to work in 2001. 9% worked at home, so only another 15%, ie fewer than 2,000 people worked within Yateley's four wards, but away from their homes. Yateley's rush hour therefore included nearly 11,000 daily commuters from Yateley on their way to work in Yateley itself or farther afield.

 

About two thirds of Yateley people worked in Hart District (including Yateley), or in the immediately adjacent local/unitary authorities of Surrey Heath, Bracknell Forest and Rushmoor, each of which provided Yateley with over 1,000 jobs. However 777 people worked in the Heathrow area of Hillingdon, Hounslow and Spelthorne of which 455 worked in Hillingdon. In fact 369 (about 3% of Yateley's employed) worked in the Heathrow Villages ward of Hillingdon Borough. Hillingdon and Hounslow draw more commuters from Yateley than the nearer destinations of Guildford and Reading. The City of London, Westminster and the other London Boroughs accessible by main line train services to Wateroo only provide employment measured in the low hundreds of commuters.

 

Some Yateley people gave their workplaces as very distance locations: Bournemouth, Bridgend, Bridgnorth, Bristol City, Flintshire, Ipswich, Maidstone, Mid Suffolk, Milton Keynes, Newcastle on Tyne, North Cornwall, North Warwickshire, North West Leicestershire, Northampton, Peterborough, Rochdale, Sheffield, South Lakeland, Southend-on-sea, Stroud, Tameside, Tewksbury, and even included 'abroad' and 'offshore'. It must be assumed that some of these people working in distant destinatioms were weekly commuters rather than daily. Other workplace destinations all round the M25, down the M3 and M4 are likely to be made by daily commuters governed by time-to-work considerations rather than distance travelled.

It is instructive to compare the above origin-destination data with distance-to-work data. Although many Yateley people appear to have travelled very long distances to work in 2001, they were by no means alone in doing so. The percentage of Yateley people (1.5%) who travelled farther than 60 km to work was only half of the percentage for Hart (3%) as a whole, and Hart was less than the percentage for the South East region (3.6%) of all people aged 16-74. This may reflect the greater proportion of train commuters in the working age population in the South East than in Yateley. This should be checked. (ACTION)

 

Compared with the SE Region Yateley has a considerably higher percentage of commuters in the 5-10 km band, continuing to be significantly higher in Yateley than the region in the 20-60km bands. Yateley has a much lower percentage of short distance commuters than the SE Region in the 0-5km band. This is reflected by the greater need for car usage in Yateley, and the fewer number of jobs locally.

 

Twice the proportion of females work within 2km of their homes but this is still lower than the proportion for the region, whereas the proportion of males working within 2km of the homes is half of the regional proportion. There is almost double the number of females working locally compared with males. Many of those working closer than 2km from their homes are probably homeworkers, but the total number of Yateley people working within 2km from home (~1,500) exceeds the number of homeworkers (~ 1,100) by about the same number that females (971) exceed males (521). There were also more females than males working in the 2-5km band. This leads to a tentative conclusion that most jobs available in Yateley ouside, but close to homes are taken by females.

 

To summarise: A significant number of Yateley people (183) commuted very long distances (>60km) in 2001 but this was less than half the percentage for Hart or the SE Region. Yateley had a consistantly higher percentage of people commuting between 5 and 40km (as the crow flies) from their homes, and a considerably lower percentage of people working close to their homes. Those who worked within 5km of their homes were more likely to be females.

Q3 DRAFT ANSWER: The average household income in Yateley was just over £41,000

Q4 DRAFT ANSWER: Yateley is not a typical "Market Town" or a typical manufacturing town. In the past it has been referred to as a "dormitory town". Employment in the town therefore tends to reflect local services, working from home, and the large number of schools. Yateley has always had Blackbushe Airport, which has always had a small manufacturing site associated with it. Blackbushe Trading Estate has recently been expanded again. Yateley is probably atypical in each of these four industry sectors. The Town Centre is mainly comprised of conveniece shops, and financial service establishments, with no comparison shopping since this is well catered for closeby in surrounding towns. Working-from-home is on a fast upward trend, which must be analysed in detail. Yateley has a large number of state schools reflecting its post-war genesis of an expanding village of starter homes. There are two state secondary schools which is atypical of today's world, plus a large private preparatory school with over 100 employees.

Not every "Market Town" has working airport.

 

It therefore seems unnecessary to make comparisons with national averages. However there is scope here to reformuate to question to learn more about the nature and trends of employment in Yateley

Q5 NOTES: The Annual Business Inquiry Workplace Analysis for 2004 gives the following results for the 3 Yateley Wards making up the Market Town Healthcheck.

Number of Workplaces:

Sizeband	Workplaces
1-10 employees	500
11-49 employees	0
50-199 employees	0
200 or more employees	0
TOTAL	600

 

The figures are rounded to the nearest 100. All workplaces having 11 or more employees, with a total rounded to 100 employees, show as ZERO.

Number of Employees:

Sizeband	Employees
1-10 employees	1,000
11-49 employees	500
50-199 employees	1,500
200 or more employees	2,200
TOTAL	5,600

 

Thus (a rounded) 3,700 employees work in establishments having 50 or more employees. Without the numbers of workplaces employing more than 50 persons one can only at this stage speculate that we are looking for perhaps 10 establishments employing an everage of just over 200 persons each, and perhaps 15 establishments employing an average of 100 persons. That would mean, to answer this question, locating about 25 workplaces employing more than 100 persons.

The directory maintained by Hampshire County Council only contains two companies with more than 100 employees: Sonadyne (on Blackbushe Business Park) and Yateley School. Yateley Manor School (not in the Hampshire Directory) also has more than 100 employees. The Directory names another two companies with 50-99 employees (Dairy Crest and M4 Data Ltd) and 12 establishments with between 10 and 49 employees including Frogmore Leisure Centre and Newlands School.

This question requires considerable research

Q6 DRAFT ANSWER: Claimant counts, with rates and proportions supplied by Hampshire County Council Economics Dept taken from Nomis on 15 March 2006 and ONS Crown Copyright Reserved. Figures relate only to the three Yateley Wards (Yateley North, Yateley East and Yateley West).

 

Date	Male	Male rate	Female	Female rate	Youth	Youth rate	Total	Total rate
February 2004	56	1.0%	28	0.6%			84	0.8%
February 2005	50	0.9%	20	0.4%			70	0.7%
February 2006	57	1.1%	17	0.3%			74	0.7%

 

These figures demonstrate that unemployement in Yateley is extremely low and well below the national average.

Q6 NOTES: Obtain figures for youth unemployment. They are of course included in the above numbers, youth being either male or female. Obtain full set of figures for Frogmore & Daby Greem Ward

Q7 DRAFT ANSWER: The unemployment numbers for Yateley are so small that any analysis of the figures by age or gender are likely to be statistically meaningless.

Q8 DRAFT ANSWER: The unemployment numbers for Yateley are so small that any analysis of trend figures over 5 years are likely to be statistically meaningless. It appears that, overall, unemployment in Yateley is stable at a very low rate, perhaps on a small downward trend

Q9 DRAFT ANSWER: The unemployment numbers for Yateley are so small that any analyses of the figures over different industries are likely to be statistically meaningless. Nomis employment figures for Yateley are provided in numbers rounded to the nearest 100. The Nomis workplace analysis for Yateley's 3 wards gives a total figure for employment in Yateley of 5,600 working in a total of 600 workplaces. This employment figure included all those living in Yateley and working in Yateley, including those working at home, whose homes are counted as workplaces. Only five industry classifications give employment numbers likely to be statistically significant, and these are rounded to the nearest 100. looking for any trends in unemployment when the total number of unemployed is less than the rounding figure for each industry looks like a futile exercise.

Q11 DRAFT ANSWER: Before answering the specific questions, as put in (i), it is important to observe Q11(ii) that employment prospects in Yateley already appear to be in a nosedive, which looks set to continue. This apparently alarming outlook may not unduly affect the employment of Yateley residents. The extremely low unemployment figures quoted above in the table in EC1 Q6 seem to indicate that closures of businesses up to March 2006 have only affected employees who commute into Yateley. Furthermore since the closures of businesses in Yateley are removal of these businesses to premises elsewhere, overall regional employment prospects remain un changed.

 

What is important for Yateley is that major historic buildings, one a Grade II*, two Grade II buildings, and four prominent sites in each of the three separate Conservation Areas are all affected. Vacant sites in these prominent positions are not good in the long term for the ambience of the town. Since four of the larger employers are involved this may also be bad news for the business rate and the economy of the town.

 

J. Rothchild Assurance plc have now vacated Yateley Hall. They were the first tenants of this Grade II* buildings following its complete renovation into high class office accommodation after Yateley Hall Convent School for Girls closed. Blue Prince Mushrooms Ltd closed several composting sites in May 2003 including their site at Clark's Farm, Darby Green. The closure of the site at Horsell caused the loss of 129 jobs, but it is not known how many jobs were lost in Yateley. Clark's Farm is a Grade II listed building in the Darby Green Conservation Area. The Hart Local Plan proposes the site for office development.

 

Mitie has offices at Saddlers Court, at Church End, Yateley shared by several of their southern region companies including Mitie Cleaning (Southern) Ltd and Mitie Property Services (Southern) Ltd. Mitie have announced they are moving to the old Frimley Water Company building in Frimley before September 2006. Sadlers Court is an important element of the Yateley Green Conservation Area. GBS Corporate Training plc has occupied Yateley Lodge since 2001. On 2 November 2005 the company merged with Atrium Communications Ltd, a leading provider of on-line learning. The company has put Yateley Lodge on the market. Yateley Lodge is one of the six buildings in Yateley originally listed as Grade II in the first list prepared pursuant to the 1949 Act. In 1999 the Yateley Society's evidence was crucial in supporting Hart District Council's refusal of planning permission seeking to turn Yateley Lodge into a public house.

 

The answers to section (i) and further answers to section (11) require further research