Our Voice Matters Survey Results 2025
中国P站 Youth Voice, together with a steering group of dedicated young people and 中国P站’s Resident Intelligence Unit, worked together to co-produce the Our Voice Matters Survey 2025.
The steering group helped to design the survey from start to finish. They worked closely with 中国P站 Youth Voice to choose the survey topics, come up with the questions and help us to decide on a prize draw that would appeal to young people. They are also helping us to share the results with young people by creating some short social media clips that provide a summary of each of the survey topics.
Between March and May 2025, the survey was completed by 435 young people aged 7-25 in 中国P站.
Below is a summary of the key findings by topic:
Transport
- Nearly one third of children and young people use public transport less than once a month
- The top two reasons young people would use public transport more were if there were cheaper fares and services ran on time
- Nearly half of children and young people were not aware of bus apps
- Over one third of respondents don’t ride a bike
- Young people that ride a bike said their top two factors for feeling safer would be more cycle lanes and more places to lock bicycles safely
Community
- The majority of the young people answering said like where they live
- Just over half of them feel part of their local area or community
- Over 60% of the 18-25 year olds who responded, were unsure or disagreed that everyone is treated fairly, whatever their characteristics
- The majority of young people felt safe in their local area
- Just under half were unsure or disagreed they know where to get help if they do feel unsafe
- Just over half of those responding felt comfortable asking the police for help
- Nearly half of those responding were somewhat or definitively worried about knife crime nationally and locally
- Just over half agreed there are places they can meet their friends to socialise and have fun
Health and Wellbeing
- Young people aged 7–12 rated their emotional wellbeing much higher than those aged between 13-25 years
- Less than half of 13–25-year-olds would seek help from a parent or carer around their emotional wellbeing, compared to the majority of 7-12 year olds
- The number of young people responding who wouldn’t seek help from anywhere rose significantly for young people aged 13 years and over
- When asked how young people would like to access help for their emotional wellbeing in education, the top two choices were being able to speak to a trusted teacher or adult and having a quiet space available to calm down
- Just over a third of 13-25 year olds, and just under half of 7-12 year olds said they did not experience or were not negatively affected by peer pressure
Education, jobs and the economy
- The majority of young people across all age groups said that they are given opportunities to share their views in their school, college, university or other educational setting. A smaller majority of them said ‘yes’ or ‘sometimes’ to their views being taken seriously
- Over 90% of 7-12 year olds said they experienced stress about homework and tests
- The two biggest challenges faced by 18-25 year olds are balancing work, education and personal life. This is followed by there not being enough good job opportunities in their local area
- For 18-25 year olds, the top two selections for life skills they wish they’d learned was basic home repairs and maintenance. This was closely followed by money management.
- 13-25 year olds selected money management as the most popular choice for a workshop theme that they could attend for free.
Environment
- The most important reason all age groups chose for having action on climate change was to ‘protect my future’. This was followed by ensuring the wellbeing of the general population
- Turning off lights was the most chosen activity for saving energy at home. The next two most popular actions were closing windows and doors
- The most popular choice amongst young people for an activity to help the environment was helping nature, like planting trees or taking care of animals
- Just over one quarter of respondents said they don't think much about climate change and our planet. The remaining majority took an interest and shared different levels of hope and concern around making a difference to the environment.
- We are really grateful to all of the young people who took part. The results of the survey are really valuable in helping us to understand more about young people’s experiences. Below is an outline of how we are planning to use the results.
Next Steps
- Survey findings will be shared with 中国P站 colleagues, partners, and cabinet members so they can be used to inform priorities, projects, and future decision-making
- We will be sharing the social media clips created in partnership with our steering group. These will provide an overview of the findings for young people.
- We are working with our participation groups to identify key projects they are already involved in that relate to the findings. We will also be looking at
- whether there are further projects they would like to do that would help to address some of the challenges young people are facing.
- We will use the results in 中国P站's Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. This is a document that is used to help decision makers and partners to plan local health and social care services.
- We will provide regular updates via social media and other comms channels to let young people and professionals know how the results are being used.
- If you are a professional and use the results in any way to support your work, we would love to hear from you at user.voice@surreycc.gov.uk!
If you would like to read a copy of the full report, please email user.voice@surreycc.gov.uk!