Aims: Through a thorough investigation of parking restrictions, pedestrian counts, shopping quality, street appearance and ground land floor use, my team and I will be able to delimit the central business district of Stamford.
Hypothesis: The number of pedestrians is higher in the C.B.D and decreases as we move away from it. This is because of the attractions of many commercial outlets and service facilities in the C.B.D. Pedestrian count will be extremely high in the places of higher shopping quality.
Because of the high range department stores in the C.B.D, the shopping quality will be high in the central area of the C.B.D while specialist shops will be more likely to be located on the outer edges of the C.B.D.
The C.B.D is theoretically the most accessible part of a town. Parking restrictions influence shopping patterns and are usually the greatest in the C.B.D because pedestrians have reduced access for cars.
Public transport is concentrated as there is a convergence of bus routes going into the C.B.D so the number of vehicles most probably decreases as we enter the C.B.D and increases as we edge away from it. There will be very few residents in the C.B.D, which is limited to only a few luxury flats.
Method: Collection of primary data- we set about at different points of Stamford town collecting raw data.
A pedestrian count indicates how busy the town is at particular points within the C.B.D. In order to do it, we positioned ourselves in different points of the Stamford High Street, which is the main area of the C.B.D and counted the number of pedestrians that walked past in one direction in five minutes. This was repeated three times within ten points in the C.B.D. An average was worked out to gain a more reliable result. Information was displayed on the map at different transects and also in a table.
There were four factors that determined the shopping quality in the C.B.D (Displayed on data collection sheet) and each had a scale of 1-5 of which we used as a reference. 1, being the highest quality and 5, being the lowest. Points were totalled up to get an accurate result to examine whether shopping quality deteriorates towards the edge of the C.B.D. The data was displayed in a table.
In order to investigate the parking restrictions, the apparent parking restrictions in the city centre were marked on a map. Roads were followed, observed parking signs and pedestrianized streets.
Recorded the ground floor use for both sides of the streets along the whole length of the transect and marked it on a blank base map. Identified each building classification. It was crucial to record the land-use outside the area, which is likely to be the C.B.D in order to correctly mark the edge of the central business district.
Collection of secondary data-
Maps and aerial photos were collected from Oundle School geography intranet site and were reproduced to annotate the base maps for presenting data on. Used this source to find key information and characteristics of the C.B.D.
South Kesteven District Council plan-Used this site to generate more large-scale maps, Goad maps and base maps.
Established the core of the Central Business District, using the Rate Index via . Dividing the rateable values by the area in square metres produced the rate indices.
Results
A graph to show the shopping quality along the outer transects
A graph to show the shopping quality against the location for the Stamford City centre.
Analysis
Pedestrian Count
Looking at the isoline map of all the pedestrian count values over the town centre and the outer transects. A clear trend presents itself. The more you move out from the town centre, the more the pedestrian count decrease. E.g., the middle of the high street in the centre of the isoline map, there are count values of 75 and 120. However, by the time you reach the third location the number has fallen to 3 or 4. The decrease in pedestrian count is due to the decrease in retail and service outlets. It is clear that there is a high pedestrian count in a places of high shopping located in the central are of the C.B.D or the town centre because there is a vast number of shops, stores, banks department stores etc. Lots of people are condensed into one area of commerce and therefore lots of pedestrians. As you edge out into the outer transects of the C.B.D less pedestrians are present as there are only specialist shops there. The main street of the C.B.D is the High Street, which is a pedestrianized street.
Shopping Quality
The shopping quality in the area ranged from large chain and department stores in the main area and specialist shops and convenient shops in the outskirts of the C.B.D. This could be due to the rental costs of each area. From my Rate index map, you can see this pattern that the rate index in the high street is higher than the rate index located in the outer transects. For example,
The Shopping quality also coincides with the Street appearance, as bigger and more expensive shops are located in cleaner and nicer looking streets. There are many bus routes, which converge into the C.B.D, which make it very accessible to shoppers. My results from my pedestrian count correlate with the bar charts in my shopping quality graph. There were more pedestrians in places of higher shopping quality and there were low pedestrian counts in places of low shopping quality. Many streets in the C.B.D are pedestrianized making it easier for shoppers to get around and parking restrictions are tight, consequently shopping quality is higher in this area as it is an ideal location. More variety stores and high quality shops are attracted to the central area of the C.B.D. The outer transects have less parking restrictions and pedestrianized streets making it harder for shoppers to get around therefore the shopping quality in these areas as shown in my graph, is low.
Land Use
CCTV Cameras
Parking Restrictions
There are a lot of parking restrictions in Location 1. As I compare the parking restrictions from the outer areas of Stamford, along the Transects. It is obvious that that there are a lot more parking restrictions in Stamford Town centre than in the outer areas. On location map 1 you will be able to notice that the High Street, which is the main shopping area, has been pedestrianized. Consequently, there are lots of car parks available around the area. Cars may only park for two hours on St. George’s Square and an hour on St.Mary’s Street. There are only two places located in the map where a car map park at any time of the day. The high concentration of commercial and retail outlets in the area cause this high concentration of parking restrictions in such a small place. This is because an immense number of pedestrians are drawn to this area. This is evident in my isoline map used to display the pedestrian count. In the centre of the High Street, approximately 120 pedestrians were recorded crossing the street over a five-minute period. With such a high number of pedestrians in the area, it is clear why the Stamford Town Council decided to pedestrianize this street, as it would not be safe to have cars driving in such conditions. Consequently, parking restrictions and car parks had to be introduced into the area.
If you look at the two bar-charts (see appendices) comparing the shopping quality in the town center against the shopping quality along the transects, then a clear pattern emerges, they show that the shopping quality in the town center scores very low out of 23 so indicating that the shopping quality is very high, while the transects score very highly on shopping quality, indicating that the shopping quality is very poor. This is because all of the shops are concentrated in the town center, if you compare the results from the pedestrian count (isoline map) against the shopping quality bar-charts then they directly correlate, as there are very high pedestrian counts in the town center and very low pedestrian counts along the transects, so indicating that there are an awful lot of pedestrians in the town center and very few along transects, so this confirms what I already know that the shopping quality in the town center must therefore be very high to attract them. The reason that the shopping quality is so high is because the CBD of a town is very accessible to pedestrians, all bus-routes converge on there, there are many pedestrianised streets and parking restrictions are very tight. So it’s very safe and easy for pedestrians to get around, so it’s an ideal location for all the shops to be if they want to attract the maximum number of shoppers.
Land-use