Anyone who took the time to research the details (ie like find where WW is), and actually filled in the form (which had a much better distribution this time), were excluded from the telephone poll.

The telephone poll is only representative of those who most likely did not have the data to make an informed decision. And if they did have view, they did not make the time to return the form, so maybe were not too fussed either way.

This is complete rubbish. The phone poll was conducted while the postal consultation was going on. I know because I had studied the proposal and was going to respond by post when I had a call and gave my view by phone. Why does that make my opinion less important?

The point of the telephone poll was to get a sample of views across different ages, backgrounds, etc. We can argue till the cows come home about whether that makes it a more valid or less valid indicator. These attempts to spuriously give weight to particular views by the method of making them are pointless.