Comparing Locations and Categories, Shops
Land Use Compared
Shopping Quality and Street Appearance
The Higher the Number the better it is.
Comparing Locations and Categories, Residential Information
Index Of Decay
The Higher the Number the better it is.
Environmental Quality
The Higher the Number the better it is.
Personal Response to Residential Environments
The Higher the Number the better it is.
Census Data
All of these graphs are shown in percentages
Analysis and Interpretation of Data
Colchester High Street
The High Street has a large percentage of category B shops which are specialist shops (41%). These shops include music, shoe shops and jewellery shops. There is also a large percentage of category C shops which are legal and financial service shops (17%). From my general knowledge of Colchester I thought that there would be a large percentage of category F shops which are chain stores but I don’t think that they are situated on the High Street, I think they are situated in shopping centres like culver square. The main chain shop I saw was Marks and Spencers.
There are lots of comparison shops and services such as shoe shops, clothes shops, estate agents and banks. These shops/ services include, Natwest, Debenhams, and Bradford & Bingley Taylor & Co. These are all high order services which need to be located near the CBD because it is the most important part of town. The reason why there are a lot of comparison shops here is because shoppers in Colchester like to browse around the shops for the cheapest merchandise, clustering of a comparison shops gives them the chance to do this so that is why they are located in the high street, the most accessible part of town.
As I continued through our transect of Colchester I noticed that the overall Shopping Quality of the high street was 16/20 and the overall Street Appearance was 22/30 which shows us that it is a good shopping area. As I walked to the Town Hall the land use varied greatly and there were more low order shops and services towards Crouch Street, this is called horizontal zoning. I also noticed that some shops and service group together, this is known as clustering. I found evidence of clustering at the top of the high street, near the Odeon, where four estate agents group all round one corner.
Tollgate Retail Park
Tollgate Retail Park has a high percentage of category B shops (75%) which are specialist stores. It also has a small percentage of category D shops (17%) which are general services. And it also has a very small percentage of category F stores (8%) which are Chain Stores. This shows us that specialist stores like to group together outside of town because the land is cheaper and generally they can purchase more warehouse space
Tollgate differs a lot from the High Street because compared to the High Street there is more space in and around the shops, the land is cheaper here because it isn’t as close to the CBD, there is room to expand if they need to, and it is situated near a good motorway junction which improves its transport links.
The Shopping Quality and Street Appearance of Tollgate aren’t as good as the High Streets. The Shopping Quality for Tollgate is 8/20 and the Street Appearance for it is 13/30.
Location 1 Manor Road
Manor Road is one of the closest housing areas to the CBD; it is mainly 19th century terraced housing. These kinds of houses would have suited factory workers who needed to live close to the CBD.
I carried out a survey in this area and its lack of open space and little areas of grass overall made me give it a score of -11 on the personal response survey. The Index of Decay survey showed us that the quality of the buildings wasn’t that great. Its score was 5 (with the higher the number the worse the place is) and compared to other housing estates its Index of Decay was higher. Its Environmental quality wasn’t very good either and scored a poor 35/65 penalty points.
According to the 2001 census Data83% of the houses in Manor Road are terraced Houses according to my census data. A mere 3% of the people living here live in a purpose built flat. We also learn from the census data that a astonishing 30% of the houses here don’t have central heating because these houses aren’t of a very high standard and seem to have just been put up quickly without thinking about things like central heating.
Location 2 Oxford Road
Oxford Road is another housing area situated close to the CBD. It is a 20th Century terraced housing area which would have rich people because they are very expensive houses. The housing quality is much higher than Manor Road and it is close the CBD as well so it’s ideal.
In my Personal Response part of my survey Oxford Road scored a surprising score of -12. I think that personally I didn’t like this area of the town because it was too close and there was little areas of grass. It scored 2 in the Index of Decay section which isn’t too bad; it just had a bit of paint peeling on a few houses. In the Environmental quality section it scored 19/65 penalty points, the main penalty points were ones to do with the noise, pollution and traffic because of where it is situated (close to town).
The Census data shows us that 61% of the people living in Oxford Road have no family and 28% have more than one car. This is a strange figure because it also has a 37% of households who don’t have a car at all. They don’t need a car because they are in walking distance of everything they need e.g town, hospital.
Location 3 Queens Road
Queens Road is not as close to the CBD as some of the other locations and it is a semi-detached/detached which would have housed rich families.
Queens Road scored a high + 15 in my Personal Response survey because generally I thought the place was an attractive place to live because of its good areas of grass and overall is a well maintained place. The Index of Decay only scored 1 which is good; it only got marked down because of a little bit of deterioration of walls on some of the houses. The Environmental quality part of the survey was good and only has 7/65 penalty points. It picked up penalty points because of its access to public open space and its noise.
The Census data reveals to us that 50% of the people who live in Queens Road are professional workers. Strangely 41% of the people in Oxford Road do not have a car which is surprising because of the large parking spaces. However they make up for this with good size gardens and the housing quality is high as well.
Location 5 Lockhart Avenue
Lockhart Avenue is even further from the CBD than the other housing areas; it is a 20th century post war housing area. This is called Urbanisation. Nowadays the rich have moved out of town to places like Lockhart Avenue because it is a much nicer place to live. This is called Counter- Urbanisation.
Lockhart Avenue was the housing area that appealed to me the most because in my Personal Response survey it scored +21 which was the highest score out of my six locations. It had quite a bit of grass and generally was the most appealing place to me. It scored 0 penalty points on the Index of Decay survey which again reinforces how good a place to live it is. It scored 5/65 penalty points on the and only got marked down because of its lack of access to open space.
The 2001 Census data revealed that a meagre 13% of houses didn’t have a car and 35% of the houses in Lockhart Avenue had more than one care. Only 3 % of the houses don’t have central heating which reflects the quality of the housing in this area. We also learn from this data that 80% of the houses in Lockhart Avenue are detached. Because of this figure we can assume that people who live here are wealthy because they can afford to buy a large detached house.
Location 8 Collingwood Road
Collingwood Road is a modern day council estate on the fringe of the CBD.
Naturally, seeing as Collingwood Road is a council estate, my Personal Response survey was the lowest yet with -13. The Index of Decay survey also was poor, picking up 13 penalty points due to the deteriorating walls, peeling paint, structural damage, rotting timber and sagging roofs. The Environmental Quality also was poor with 22/65. Its landscape quality, derelict land, litter, traffic flow and noise all were poor.
We learn from the census data that Collingwood Road’s housing types vary a lot and offer the same percentage for semi-detached, terraced and terraced. 36 % of the houses in Collingwood Road do not own a car. Also we learn that 16% of the houses here do not have central heating and 8% have no amenities.
Location 10 Tollgate Drive
Tollgate Drive is one of the most modern housing estates which I have covered during my study of Colchester.
In my survey Tollgate Drive scored an average score of + 10, which indicates that personally I find this and okay place to live. Because of how modern it is Tollgate Drive didn’t pick up any penalty points on the Index of Decay survey. On the Environmental quality survey it only picked up 4/65 penalty points. It only lost a few points because of how noisy it was and its lack of access to shops and schools.
From the Census data we learn that 53% of the houses in Tollgate Drive are detached. Also we find out that 23% of the people who live there have jobs in the craft related industry.
Analysis of Interpretation of Data
In the High Street
In the High Street there are a high percentage of categories B, C and F shops and services because these high order shops need to be close to the CBD to get as much attention from customers and businesses. Debenhams would not survive if it was in an area that was less accessible to customers than its competitors. Some shops in the high street cluster together like estate agents near the Odeon and banks. Customers like to compare prices and styles so they do comparison shopping to make sure they have seen everything that particular shop has to offer.
This part of Colchester is called the Central Business District and holds many characteristics of the Burgess, Hoyt and Mann. My figures show that Colchester High Street has a good shopping quality, it scored 16/20. For street appearance it scored 22/30 which overall reflect how good a shopping area it is.
Tollgate Retail Park
The Tollgate Retail Park is a typical out of town development. My figures show that it hasn’t’ necessarily the best shopping quality and street appearance. Overall it scored 8/20 on the shopping quality and its street appearance scored 13/30. Also it contained a high number of category B and F shops which are superstores. They have located here because the land is cheaper at the edge of town, there are good communication links
(A12), large modern building, space for car parks, new housing estates nearby and also it has room to expand. Around Tollgate there has sprouted many office and computer stores this is another example of clustering.
Residential
Location1
It is and inner city 19th century low cost terraced housing estate. It must have been built to house working class people who couldn’t afford to live far from their jobs. They probably worked at the Hythe or other industrial areas around the CBD. This is similar to the Burgess model.
Location 2
This area seems an area where the rich population lived. My figures show that the environment is much better than in location 1. The rich usually split themselves up from the working class and again this is similar to the Burgess model.
Location 3
Location 3 is an nice housing estate which has a few good points, e.g. in particular it’s good condition, big gardens, room for parking and lots of trees. This fits into the Burgess and Hoyt models this type of housing forms a zone in both theoretical models.
Location 5
This is a post-war housing estate which was built in the 1970’s. It contains a variety of expensive properties. This estate seems to fit the outer circle of most theoretical models where suburban estates are found.
Location 8
This is an estate built in the inter-war years to house people who wanted to rent houses not buy them. Many of these estates litter Britain.
Location 10
This is a typical edge of town modern estate; all the models mention that as towns expand new estates will grow up along the edge of towns to house the expanding population. Here many green sites can be found, they are a lot cheaper and are close to main roads.
We can see from this 1980’s Tollgate map that the site was already beginning to be developed and was starting already to become a very important out of town development. This particular site was important because;
- There are plenty of space for car parking, no parking problems or traffic congestion as there is in the town centre.
- It is near the A12 which makes delivery of good easy and also gives shoppers access site from a long way away.
- Lang values are much lower than in the CBD as are rates and rent. This allows the stores to use large floors and can have more goods because they can invest more money into the goods they have rather than worry about the rent.
- There is plenty of space for expansion
- It is near a many growing estates which provides the shops with workers.
We can see that by 1998 the Tollgate Retail Park has expanded further and there are even more signs that it will continue to expand. The main changes that I can identify are;
- The new buildings use modern building materials and look different compared with earlier buildings.
- There are now more superstores on the site.
- The site continues to expand into the green sites littered outside the Park.
- The types of store being attracted to Tollgate are Comparison shops and more superstores.
- The transport around the site has improved greatly.
I think these changes have taken place because;
- Due to the increase of car ownership more people are more mobile and can travel further to visit shops with a wider variety of goods.
- With the improved transport in and out of the site, it is easier for Lorries to drop off their goods.
- More families have a weekly shop where they buy a lot of stuff for the whole week.
- As Colchester expanded more estates sprouted up further away from the CBD so shops and services like Tollgate moved out to these estates.
- More shops are open late into the evenings and on Sundays.
Conclusion
I believe that my enquiry has been successful because I have answered the four questions outlined in my introduction.
I have found out that the land use changes as distance from the town centre increases. The two main types of land use I studied, residential and shopping. I have discovered that there are a high concentration of high order, specialist shops and services towards the town centre and the type of shop changes the further you are from the CBD.
There are many residential zones throughout my transect of Colchester and these all vary the further from the CBD you are. Towards the town centre I found a lot of 19th Century terraced housing. The residential areas grew more modern as we travelled further and further away from the town centre.
Colchester’s land use pattern is similar to the Mann theoretical model.
The field work I did was very accurate, however I believe that to make it even more reliable I could have visited more locations and spanned out study of Colchester over two days so we had time to visit each location for a longer time.
Evaluation
During my investigation I felt that a number of things went well like the data we collected was accurate because it was a primary source. To improve my investigation I could do another transect because we only followed one from the CBD to the outskirts of Colchester. I think that my results would have been different if we did a transect to the South or the East because to the South lies the Garrison and to the East lies the industry packed Hythe.
We could have also spent more time in Colchester collecting data from more locations. We only spent a day in Colchester and we could have easily collected more data over two or three days and this would of made our results more accurate. We could have also compared our transect of Colchester to a transect of another town like Chelmsford for example, this would have shown us a completely new transect.
When we went into town we only took data of one side of the street and I think that if we took data from both sides of the street our results would have been even more accurate. Unfortunately our Census data was fairly old and I think that we would have found different trends if we had more up to date census data.
My Investigation could be used by many people who live in the Colchester area. People buying new houses in the Colchester area could use my results to find a house within their price range and a house that is perfect for them. Also people who are looking to open up a new business could use my results on clustering within the high street. This would give them an implication as to where the main shop types are clustered and also would help them choose a location for their new business. Pupils who also are studying a transect could use my results and compare them with their own to see if they got the same results.