Fewer than one in five people given a copy of Kingston Council’s flagship All in One survey filled in and sent back the questionnaire.

The £95,000 survey, launched in October, was designed to find out what residents thought the council should spend its time and money on and was sent to every household in the borough, amounting to 65,000 copies.

But only 15 per cent of people, or 9,746 individuals, responded.

Ruling Conservatives have nonetheless welcomed the responses, and said they “received three times as many responses as any other survey the council has conducted”.

Deputy council leader Gaj Wallooppillai said: “Such detailed, resident generated data and views on what the council does well, what it could do better and what our priorities should be for the future, helps us to ensure we can deliver services that meet residents’ needs and expectations.”

The results of the survey will be published in January.