How is the provision of services affected by the size or distribution of the population within the vale of Ffestiniog?

Why this data is important to my work and what can I use it for.

Limitations and problems with the data collected and the way it was collected.

How the technique for collecting the data could have been improved.

Service survey

We used a service survey because it was the easy way to discover the services provided in each settlement. And the type of these services.

This data shows me the services in the 14 settlements within the Vale of Ffestiniog (these include bus routes). This data will be used to discover if there is any relationship between the population size and the provision for services. I will need to find the population size for the settlements to make this useful. This data is important because it provides some data needed to answer my three key questions.

Data was collected quickly in a short space of time which may have caused mistakes. It was collected in groups so if other people made mistakes it would affect your own data.

Data could have been collected over a longer period of time to ensure fewer mistakes. Data could have been collected individually not in groups so if other people made mistakes it would not affect you.

Questionnaire

We asked 28 people in Blaenau Ffestiniog questions and recorded then in a questionnaire Figure 6.5 in the appendix.

This data shows me the shopping habits of the population around the vale of Ffestiniog. This data is important because it shows me how people travel for services.

Data is not very specific to my title questions. Some questions asked are of no help to my work.

I would choose questions more specific to my work to get a greater understanding of how people travel for services. I would have asked the questionnaire to people in all of the 14 settlement not just in Blaenau Ffestiniog.

Table showing the Secondary data used. This is only the data I feel relevant to my title question more data could have been used but was not relevant.

Source of data and why this source was used.

Why this data is important to my work and what I can use it for.

Problems and limitations to the data?

How the could the source be improved.

Rural Settlement Study.

I used this source because it gives me valuable data.

Also the www.gwynedd.gov.uk/index.english.htm site was used to see how accurate the rural settlement study was. Figure 6.2 in the appendix

This source is important as without It could not answer my title question or some of my key questions. This data can be used to provide the population of the 14 settlements which will allow me to answer my title question. I can use this in addition to my service survey to discover if there is any relationship between provision of services and the size of the population.

Information may be old out of date. Data may not be accurate.

Data could be recollected and updated regularly.

List of organisations and organised activities in Blaenau Ffestiniog and Porthmadog. This source was used because it provides services which I may have missed on my service survey. Figure 6.3 in the appendix

This provides me with a wider range of services which I may have missed in my primary service survey data. This will allow me to answer my title question more accurately.

The data provided is not very detailed.

Data could contain more detail to allow better use of it.

Web site called www.multimap.com

This site was used because I could locate all the settlements in the vale of Ffestiniog using this site. Figure 6.4 in the appendix.

This source provides detailed maps of the Vale of Ffestiniog so that I may clearly show the distribution of people in the area.

Maps can not zoom in to show more detailed layouts of settlements e.g. the location of certain shops.

Source could have more detailed individual maps of each individual settlement

Data representation.

This Pie Chart shows the percentage each settlement population size takes up over the total population size of the Vale of Ffestiniog.

Figure 3.1

Graph/table showing the total population of each settlement. Also shows how the population is distributed Porthmadog being the bottom of the Vale of Ffestiniog and Blaenau Ffestiniog being the top part of the Vale

Figure 3.2

Graph showing the amount of services provided in each settlement. Graph was created from figure 6.3 in the appendix.

Figure 3.2

Graph/table showing the number of services provided in each settlement. Graph was created from my service survey in the appendix. Figure 6.1

Figure3.3

Data Analysis and Explanation

In this section I will analyse the data I have used for this work.

The data I have used the most is found in the appendix figure 6.4 my service survey which was primary data but I did edit it using to types of secondary data a web site and a sheet called rural settlement study list of organisations and organised activities (figure 6.2 found in the appendix). From this data I made a number of charts and graphs to try and answer my title question.

Figure 3.1 in the previous section shows the percentage each settlement population takes up over the total population of the Vale of Ffestiniog. This was done so I could easily get a rough idea from looking at the pie chart which settlements were larger than others. The pie chart clearly shows the three largest settlements are Blaenau Ffestiniog, Porthmadog and Penrhyndeudraeth and the smallest settlements are Maentwrog, Gellilydan and Garreg Llanfrothen so we would expect these to have fewer services than the rest. From this graph we can see that Trawsfynydd is almost half the size as Penrhyndeudraeth so if any relationship was present between the size of the population and the services provided we might expect the amount of services at Trawsfynydd to be nearly half of that at Penrhyndeudraeth.

Figure 3.2 is a more accurate graph/table using the same data as in figure 3.2 the pie chart this though shows the population of the settlements exactly and also gives a picture of the distribution of the 14 settlements. The first settlement on the graph is Porthmadog which is at the bottom of the Vale of Ffestiniog and then the last is Blaenau Ffestiniog which is located at the top of the Vale of Ffestiniog. This graph/table will help me to determine if there are any relationships involved in the distribution and population of the settlements to the provision of services. In this graph I can clearly see again that Trawsfynydd is almost half the size as Penrhyndeudraeth.

Figure 3.3 is a graph showing the total number of services in each settlement. From this we can clearly see that the largest settlements still have the most services. But we can see there is no obvious trend in this graph/table if compared to figure 3.2. We can also see that as I predicted if there was an obvious relationship between provision of services and size and distribution of the population then the services in Trawsfynydd would be nearly half that of Penrhyndeudraeth which they are not so any obvious relationship is not present.

Figure 3.4 is the most important graph/table in my work as it compares the population size of the settlement to the amount of services in the settlement. From this graph/table there is still no obvious relationship only that as the size of the settlement increases so does the provision for services but no relationship or trend is present to discover how this works.

Figure 6.1 in the appendix is a map showing me the distribution of the settlements within the Vale of Ffestiniog. From this map I can see if I use figure 3.2 also that the larger settlements are at the bottom and top of the Vale and one large settlement is located in the middle.

To see how strong the relationship between the provision of services and the settlement population I will use spearman's rank.

Results in table taken from figures 3.3 and 3.2 in the data representation section.

Settlement

Population

Rank

Provision of services

Rank

Difference

Difference squared

Blaenau Ffestiniog

3494

81

0

0

Porthmadog

2474

2

45

2

0

0

Penrhyndeudraeth

358

3

38

3

0

0

Llan Ffestiniog

685

4

8

6

2

4

Trawsfynydd

670

5

25

4

-1

Tremadog

547

6

20

5

-1

Minffordd

540

7

9

1

4

6

Manod

515

8

2

8

0

0

Borth-y-Gest

471

9

5

7

-2

4

Morfa Bychan

380

0

0

9

-1

Gellilydan

305

1

8

3

Tan-y-Grisiau

256

2

0

9

-3

9

Maentwrog

33

3

8

3

0

0

Garreg Llanfrothen

32

4

9

1

-3

9

?d2=

46

R=6*45 R=270 =0.10 1-0.10=0.9

2744 -14 2730

0.9 Shows a strong positive correlation between the settlement population and the provision of services. Meaning there is a relationship between the two.

Conclusion and Evaluation

In my introduction my title question was:

How is the provision of services affected by the size or distribution of the population vale of Ffestiniog?

To answer this I decide there were 3 key questions I must first answer to allow me to obtain the data needed:

. What is the population of the settlement?

2. How many services are available to the population of each the settlement?

3. To determine from my data if there is any relationship between the population size and distribution to the provision of services?

These three questions have been answered by the collection of primary and secondary data. My data collected suggests there is a basic rule for my title question and that is as the population increase so does the provision for services. Today though Blaenau Ffestiniog is decreasing in size and losing services while Porthmadog is increasing in size due to tourism and increasing its services. These two large towns in the 1980 had small towns distributed round them to help with the transport and mining of the slate. These towns only had a few services and some still do e.g. Gellilydan and Maentwrog.

My original aim was to discover the relationship if any between services provided for the population of the settlement and the actual population of the settlement. Also I will see if distribution of the population has anything to do with it. This aim was completed I investigated my question and aim the best I could in the time I had. My spearman's rank answers my question because it shows a strong positive correlation between the provision of services and the population of the settlement. This proves a relationship exists between the two. So when the population changes a lot the provision for services is also effected. More people means more services are needed to deal with the people and less people means less trade for current services so they can't afford to carry on. One thing which proves this is when our field work was done in Blaenau Ffestiniog there were a number of houses and shops boarded up and left derelict because Blaenau Ffestiniogs population is on the decrease.

My work could have been improved by spending more time on field work and doing it on your own not working in groups and relying on other people who could make mistakes. More in-depth work could have been carried out the service survey I feel it may have been inaccurate in some places. Also my spearman's rank would have been better with 15 sets of data not 14. This is because spearman's rank was designed for 15 sets of data but I only used 14. I could of improved my questionnaire by making it more specific for my title question. I could of asked the questionnaire at different times of the day or year to get a more accurate set of answers from a wider range of people.