Changes in shopping over the past 30 years.

Introduction

In this project I will be looking at the changes in shopping over the past 30 years. I will be looking at the busiest areas, traffic count, shop types and car park count.

Launceston is in the south West of England as you can see in map 1. Launceston is in the north of Cornwall as you can see in map 2. It has a Norman castle that is on the outskirts of the CBD (84,32). My school Launceston College is at 333,837 it is on the outer suburbs of Launceston.

Launceston is twinned with Plestin Les Greves, which is a French town. The population of Launceston is 7050 and is about 28-30 km from Plymouth and about 60 km from Exeter. The main road that runs through Launceston and stops at Penzance is called the A30. Launceston is about 15-20 km away from Dartmoor National Park and 25-30 km from Bude on the coast.

In Launceston in the 1960s the most common shops were butcher, fishmongers and green grocers, now there are less than half what there was in the 1960s. The least common shop in the 1960s was the supermarket as there was only one of them, but now there is still only one supermarket in the CBD.

In the 1960s-1970s. Shopping areas can be put into a shopping hierarchy. The diagram below shows this.

In the 1960s and 1970s they started to build undercover shopping centres for example The White Hart Arcade. Areas that have the largest amount of pedestrians in it have the biggest shops and the most easily accessed shops for example the high street.

Comparison shops started to arrive, different shops wear style and prices can be compared.

More specialist shops (jewellery, furniture and electrical.)

You would also expect to find lots of baker’s butchers and fishmongers.

It would be very expensive to but a property in the CBD because it would have been easily accessed but there had been a lot of traffic.

Now a days you would expect to find an increase in the number of food shops for example Tesco and less butchers, bakers and fishmongers, less furniture and carpet stores and most of the buildings that were vacant now are filled with building societies, banks, estate agents, small restaurants, cafes and even small clothes shops.

In the CBD now a days there is a lot more traffic because in the 1960s a lot more people walked places, didn’t have cars and there was less people in the CBD anyway. In Launceston now there is Tesco, which has everything in it that you would want so you can get everything there rather than going to lots of little shops in the CBD. Tesco have put small shops in the CBD out of business so that is why there are fewer butcher, fishmongers and green grocers.

If I were to compare Launceston with a bigger town or city, you would see a big difference. You would see the pedestrian count; traffic count and car park count would be a lot higher. You would also see that in Plymouth there is a lot of undercover shopping centres, whereas in Launceston all there is, is The White Hart Arcade, which isn’t really a shopping centre but a road that’s undercover.

This could cause a problem in this study because this type of study probably would have been better to do on a large town or city, and launceston ...

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This could cause a problem in this study because this type of study probably would have been better to do on a large town or city, and launceston is not a very good example of a town because it’s quite small, and its not that easy to compare over the years.

The reason why a lot of vacant buildings are no longer vacant is because of:

Increase mobility-Because of the number of people that own cars has gone up, people can travel further to visit shops with a wider range of stock.

Accessibility-Because the roads have been improved it enables shoppers to travel more easily.

Bulk Buying-Most people buy in bulk either once a month or once a week because people have less time and more people get paid monthly, also because bulk buying is cheaper.

Space-Most superstores (tescos) have been built on edge of city locations. They need large space to expand and good access by working around people’s jobs like tescos opening 24 hours and late night shopping and shops closing later.

In this project I expect to find that:

The most popular car park to be the multi storey
The most popular place to be the high street
An increase in building societies, bank and estate agents
A decrease in butchers, fishmongers and green grocers
The traffic counts to have gone up
Less DIY shops
An increase in restaurants, cafes and takeaways.

Here is a shopping hierarchy for 2001

Method

To collect the data we needed we did two types of data: Primary data that is data collected in the field e.g. traffic count, car park count, Pedestrian count, shop type and Independent and chain. We also did secondary data, which is data collected in the classroom, which is like map work and information collected from textbooks. We use sampling there are three different types of sampling there is random, systematic and stratified sampling. Random sampling is where each member of a population has an equal chance of being selected. To select from this population, each member is assigned a number using computer generated random number tables, we did not use this type of sampling because its too high tech and it wouldn’t be appropriate for this type of study.

Systematic sampling is where each sample is selected in a regular manner. For example this would mean taking a vegetation sample every 10 metres, or taking a sample at a series of points. This method avoids bunching and is simple and easy to apply. We used this one when we did are counts because we placed are selves at different points around the CBD and did are counts the points were equally spread out, this method saved time and gave us an accurate result. Stratified sampling is the last one it takes into count the relative proportion of different groups within the sample. We didn’t do this type of sampling, we could have but it would have been a lot of effort.

In primary data the first thing we did was a pedestrian count, we collected this by first getting into groups of 2 or 3, we then went to different roads around the CBD, we then counted traffic going in and out of the CBD and we did this for 5 mins. The reason we did a traffic count was to see if the CBD was the busiest part of town as theored in my introduction.

Next we did a pedestrian count. The first thing we did was to get into groups of 2 or 3 we then went to different parts. We then counted the number of people walking in and out of the town for five mins. The reason we did a pedestrian count was to see where the busiest part of the CBD was and to see how many people prefer walking than using a car or lorry or public transport.

Next we did a car park count, we split into groups of 2 or 3 and went to different car parks around town. We walked around and counted all the parked cars in the car park. We did this because we wanted to see if people preferred parking near or far away from the CBD.

The next one we did was shop type; we split into groups of about 2 or 3 and went to different streets around town. We counted the different shop types and marked them on our maps. We did this to see how shops change over the years and to see how many shops were selling the same thing as they did 30 years ago.

The last one we did was independent or chain, when we were going round looking at different shop types we also put down weather they were independent or chain for example whizkids and finlays are independent shops whereas Whsmith and Boots are chain shops. We did this because we wanted to see if it was only chain shops that could afford good property for example on the high street.

When we did are secondary data we did two types of maps, one from the 1960s to 1970s and one from 2002, we had to do a key for each map by colouring each shop type a different colour. When we did are 2002 map we went into Launceston CBD to get the information then went back to the classroom and coloured the different shop types using the same key as the 1960s-1970s map.

I could have done another pedestrian count and traffic count in the summer holidays, to see if the figures had risen or fallen. I could have seen if the time of the year made a difference, which I think it would of because there is no school and there would be lots of holidaymakers.

Conclusion

Aim 1: The most popular car park to be the multi-storey

From what I have found out in my car park count that I did my aim was wrong, my results show that Madford lane is the most popular car park and than multi-storey was the second from the least popular, so my aim was totally wrong. I think I thought that the multi-storey was going to be the most popular because it is a big car park, but in that way it means it is going to take a lot longer to fill. Whereas Madford Lane is a very small car park and I wouldn’t actually call it a car park but parking space along a road so obviously it isn’t going to take long to fill and it’s on a popular street.

Aim 2: The most popular place to be the high Street

My results showed that the most popular street for pedestrians to be broad Street so my aim was wrong I think I thought that the high street would be the most popular because it is where all the main shops are on the high street but actually there is a lot of very popular shops on broad street and it is a road that is travelled up and down to get from one side of the cbd to the other.

Aim 2: An increase in building societies, banks and estate agents.

This aim was correct there was an increase in banks, building societies and estate agents I think this is because the property market has gone up and more people are happy to sell there houses and move into different ones. Whereas in the 1960’s people didn’t really think about the money gain they just liked living in the same house all their life, but now a days things are more money orientated, so people are borrowing money from banks and, most people have all there money in a bank account, instead of keeping large sums of money in their houses as sum people would of done in the 1960’s.

Aim 4: A decrease in fishmongers, butchers and green grocers

This aim is also correct, I think the reason why this is true is because of big chain supermarkets like Tescos who have put these little independent shops out of business, for peoples convenience and which has made these little shops out of business. Tescos I

S open 24 hour which makes it even more of a convenience whereas little indecent shops in the town whish close at 4.30 5 o’clock tescos is open all night so if u finish work late one night but still need to dot he weekly shop this makes it possible for that to happen. So this is why there are hardly any little butchers etc.

Aim 5: The traffic count to have gone up:

This is also true, this is to be expected because a lot less people walk places and would rather take a car so there is going to be more traffic over the years there will be more and more. The more shops there are the bigger the town will get and the lazier people will get.

Evaluation

I’m my study of the changes in shopping in Launceston over the past 30 years I have found many things out about Launceston in general and detailed about the shopping patterns.

I think I collected sufficient data but I could of gone back in the summer holidays so I would have had something to compare my first set of data with, even though I said was going to do this I couldn’t find the time an I thought that I had enough information and results.

The disadvantages of the way we collected some of the data was the time span we had to do it in, I think that if we had done some of the counts over more than 5 minutes and if we had done each count twice in one day we probably would of had better results, because we would have had comparisons of the difference of the time of day meant or if I didn’t make a difference at all.

If I had to collect the data again and in my own way I would of made the collection of data wider and longer, because it would of helped lot.

I think my results were quite accurate as they were done well and not rushed.