Hundreds of people have already taken part in the Your Say survey, which the Express & Star believes is the biggest independent poll to be held in the Black Country and Staffordshire.
The Express & Star is asking 10 questions each day on everything from how cuts have affected services to shopping choices and social habits. The aim is to create a snapshot of life in the West Midlands and Staffordshire that will make local politicians and service providers take notice.
Readers can either complete a printed form in the newspaper or fill out an online survey on Expressandstar.com. Entries started pouring in online before the first edition of Monday’s paper had even hit the streets, say the publishers.
MPs in the region backed the survey, praising the Express & Star for setting the agenda. Ian Austin, Labour MP for Dudley North, said: "This is a brilliant initiative for the Express & Star and I have no doubt that councillors, MPs and the people running public services will be watching the results very carefully.
"This is exactly the sort of thing a community newspaper should be doing - listening to local people and highlighting their opinions on the things they care about."
Gavin Williamson, Conservative MP for South Staffordshire, said: "As an MP I find people do not hold back in sharing their views but often there are people who aren't aware of how to get in touch with the local representatives or how to get their view across to the chief executive of their local council.
"We all want to see improvements in services and improvements in the areas we live. To do that there has to be as much feedback as possible from the public and this survey is an excellent way of doing that."
Express & Star editor Adrian Faber said he hoped the survey would provide "a valuable snapshot of life in this region as we enter 2013".
He said: “We hope the findings of the survey will provide an insight into the priorities and concerns of our readers, something that service providers like councils and the police will take notice of. An essential role of the Express & Star is to give readers a voice and we want that voice to be as powerful as possible.”
The Your Say survey can be found at www.expressandstar.com/survey. It comes on the back of last year’s Express & Star Black Country Census on community identity and sister title the Shropshire Star’s Shropshire Survey, which generated more than 7,500 replies on life in the county.
