Students from the Willowbank School of Restoration Arts are hosting an online survey to gather people's opinions about the Parliament Oak school site.

The survey is part of a project for students to create a conservation management plan, something the students have to do every year as a purely educational exercise.

“A conservation management plan is simply a document that explains why a place is significant and then how the owner, whoever that is, can sustain the significance in any new use alteration or repair,” said Caitlin Wooll, the school's director.

Wooll stressed the project is purely internal and doesn’t want to get involved in the debate about development on the Parliament Oak school site.

However, she did say the school might share the results of the survey on a purely educational level for the public to read. The students' assignment runs until April.

Parliament Oak and the survey are just one small aspect of the overall student project, which aims to look at post-war infrastructure in NOTL, Wooll said.

She said the assignment has been interesting as post-war infrastructure is often overshadowed by the many older buildings still standing in the municipality. 

The survey is important so students “glean how the public has perceived the property over time.”

She encourages everyone curious to take the survey. It can be accessed from Willowbank's Facebook page. There are also flyers with the survey link posted at various locations around town, including the Queen Street Starbucks, Balzacs and the community centre.