On the next page is a blank copy of one of the Shopping Quality and Street Appearance Recording Sheets
I asked a questionnaire when I went to Leicester. Before I went to Leicester I decided to make a pilot questionnaire, this is so my final questionnaire would provide me with the best possible results for the investigation. Below shows the pilot questionnaire:
- How far do you have to travel to get to Leicester?
- How do you get to Leicester?
- Which street offers the best shopping quality?
- Which street offers the best street appearance?
- Which of these is the main factor that affects shopping quality?
- Size of shop
- Quality of goods
- Appearance of shop
6. Which of these is the main factor that affects street appearance?
- Safety
- Size of streets
- Cleanliness
7. Of the many promotions, which has been the most beneficial?
- Do you believe this scheme has been successful?
- What would you like to be seen done to improve the areas shopping quality?
- What would you like to be seen done to improve the areas street appearance?
After asking members of my family to fill in the pilot questionnaire it was clear that some of the questions needed to be revised. Questions 3 and 4 are too vague; I need to list the five streets that I am investigating. Questions 5 asks the shoppers to choose one of the factors, this limits the shopper to having to choose one of only three factors, in my final questionnaire I will leave a blank space leaving shoppers to fill their own response, this will give me a broader range of answers. The same applies for question 6. Question 7 asks ‘of the many promotions, which has been the most beneficial? ‘ I believe it would be useful to list some examples and ask a question about a specific scheme. Below shows a copy of the actual questionnaire I will use.
How does shopping quality and street appearance vary with a specific area of the Leicester CBD?
1.How far do you have to travel to get to Leicester?
2. How do you travel to Leicester city centre?
3. Do you regularly shop in Leicester?
4. Why do you choose to shop in Leicester rather than another town or city centre?
5. Which of these streets offers the best shopping quality?
- Rutland Street
- Halford Street
- Charles Street
- Humberstone Gate (not including the Haymarket centre)
- Gallowtree gate
6. Which of the streets offers the best street appearance?
- Rutland Street
- Halford Street
- Charles Street
- Humberstone Gate (not including the Haymarket centre)
- Gallowtree gate
7.What are the three main factors that affect shopping quality?
8. What are the three main factors that affect street appearance?
9. There has recently been the promotion of late night shopping in the centre, have you ever come and what did you think of it?
10.Other schemes include pedestrianisation, improving public transport and restricting on street parking, have these schemes ever influenced your decision to come shopping here?
11. Do you believe these schemes have been successful on the whole?
Questionnaire continued…
12. What would you like to be seen done to the centre to improve shopping quality?
13. What would you like to be seen done to the centre to improve street appearance?
The table bellows explains the reasons I asked the questions that I did.
Data Analysis
All the data that I used in this investigation was used to help me answer the following question: How does shopping quality and street appearance vary within a specific area of the Leicester CBD?
I included photos with complementary notes, the photos helped visually and the notes explained why the area had the shopping quality and street appearance score that they did. To show which locations scored what, I included the scores in the notes with the photos but I also drew proportional columns on a map of the streets I had surveyed. This meant that you could easily see which locations got the best scores and the worst scores. Below is the table of which streets got the best average score. To do this I added up the individual shopping quality scores from each location within a street then divided by how many locations there were in the street then repeated it to with the street appearance scores to get the average street appearance score. I did this so I could easily see how the shopping quality and street appearance varies within a city.
This table above shows how streets that scored well in street appearance (SA) scored well in shopping quality (SQ). Only two of the streets, indicated by blue did not achieve the same ranking both times. This shows there is a clear link between good shopping quality and good street appearance, and bad shopping quality and bad street appearance.
The graph on the left shows how the five streets shopping quality and street appearance scores compared. The graph shows how Humber ton Gate and Gallowtree Gate got by far the best scores and Rutland Street got a very poor score for each location scored.
I carried out a questionnaire, below shows the analysis of the results.
I would liked to have done a more in depth analysis of the questionnaires but since only twelve people filled in the questionnaire this would be unhelpful in my investigation.
Another one of my main questions was to find out how shops and Leicester City Council have tried to improve the shopping quality and street appearance in the area, and how successful have these schemes been? Leicester city centre is a major regional shopping centre; it attracts over half a million people annually. The shopping area is compact, the main shops are concentrated in a small area of only several street. It is very important that the council and shops try to improve shopping quality and street appearance because of the pressures Leicester city centre faces. The council along with the Environment City Partnership have set up the City Centre Action Programme (CCAP) The CCAP is a set of environmental improvement and transport proposals for the city centre covering a ten year period. The programmes hopes to:
- Encourage more people to live in the city
- Improve buildings, shops and street
- Create more public space
- Promote street cafes
- Reduce traffic to central area
Below shows two newspaper articles that talk about several of the schemes.
Evaluation and conclusion
My main question was split up into three sub-questions.
How and why does shopping quality and street appearance vary within a specific area of the Leicester CBD?
What factors affect shopping quality and why?
What factors affect street appearance and why?
How have shops and Leicester City Council tried to improve the shopping quality and street appearance in the area, and how successful have these schemes been?
What factors affect shopping quality and why?
By looking at the shopping quality and street appearance scores it can be seen that Humberstone Gate and Gallowtree Gate score the highest of any of the five streets, the questionnaire I carried out also proves that shoppers liked these areas shopping quality the most, certain factors in the streets caused shoppers to like them, whereas factors in streets such as Rutland Street and Halford Street cause the streets to get low scores. From analysing all the results I gained I believe the main factors that affect shopping quality are: The quality of the goods, shopper want high quality goods at low prices so they are not wasting their money. The atmosphere of the shop also affected the shopping quality of the street, shoppers preferred large, airy shops, which were not crowded. Stores like Marks & Spencer and GAP have recently expanded. Another factor that affects shopping quality is the variety of shops, people like a large variety of shops in a relatively small, concentrated area. The reason for this is that distances between shops are small and more shopping can be done in smaller amounts of time compared to a city with shops that are all spaced out. Shoppers also want attractive stores that are well maintained, this is why Rutland Street scored poorly.
What factors affect street appearance and why?
Gallowtree Gate and Humberstone Gate scored highly. These areas had certain factors that meant their street appearance was good, whilst Rutland Street and Halford Street had certain factors, which meant their street appearance was poor. Many factors affect street appearance. Safety is a huge factor affecting street appearance. Humberstone Gate and Gallowtree gate scored so highly because no vehicles are allowed in the streets, whereas busier, more dangerous streets achieved lower score. The two streets mentioned have been pedestrianised whereas poorer scoring streets were open to traffic. Photo ten shows litter on Rutland Street, litter is a major factor that affects street appearance, the less litter the better the street appearance and the more likely shoppers will use these streets. Photo 13 shows one of the streets being cleaned, this shows the council is keen to keep the streets clean. Wide paths affected street appearance because when it became very busy the street was not too crowded. The maintenance of the shops was also an important factor, two very contrasting photos are photo 2 and photo 11, the former shows a well kept shop in Humberstone Gate, the latter shows a poorly maintained shop in Halford street. Humberstone Street scored more highly than Halford Street because all the shops in Humberstone Gate were very well maintained whereas many of the shops in Halford Street were poorly maintained.
The link between shopping quality and street appearance
The factors that affect shopping quality and street appearance are not independent of each other; certain factors affect shopping quality and street appearance. For example a well-maintained shop exterior would mean the street appearance of the area is very good, which is likely to improve the shopping quality of the area. If a street is cleaned the appearance will improve which is likely to increase shoppers enjoyment of being in the area, which will improve the shopping quality of the area.
By looking at the graphs which show shopping quality and street appearance of the streets it can be easily seen that shopping quality and street appearance are closely linked, for example if a shop sells good quality items it will attract a lot of custom. The shop is likely to make large profits and this money can then be spent on improving the appearance of the exterior of the shop, which will increase street appearance. If a street is very safe for shopper more of them are likely to visit and buy things from these shops. The shops can then increase the size of the shop and improve the shopping quality of the area. The diagrams below show this snowball effect.
Shopping quality improves
Better shops move into area
More people attracted to the area
Street appearance improves
More popular areas improved
Fig. 1a
Shopping quality falls
Shops leave the area
Less people attracted to the area
Street appearance falls
Area becomes unpopular and neglected
Fig.1b
How have shops and Leicester City Council tried to improve the shopping quality and street appearance in the area, and how successful have these schemes been?
The shops in Leicester city centre and the council have introduced many schemes, see table below.
These are just a few of the many schemes set up by the shops and council in Leicester, for all the schemes visit this website: www.leicester.gov.uk
However the main question of the investigation was ‘How and why does shopping quality and street appearance vary within a specific area of the Leicester CBD?’ Shopping quality and street appearance does vary, see map A. Humberstone Gate and Gallowtree Gate achieved the highest scores. Several reasons are behind the fact that shopping quality and street appearance vary.
Shopping quality is best in Humberstone Gate and Gallowtree Gate because these streets have the major stores like Topshop, Topman, WHSmiths, Virgin Marks & Spencer etc. They sell a wide variety of goods at low, competitive prices. Street appearance is best in Humberstone Gate and Gallowtree Gate also because the most is done to keep these areas attractive, and shoppers are most likely to visit these areas. This is why the shops set up here and the prices for doing so are so high, so the most money is spent on these areas. The council can afford to do this because of the money being made from letting out the buildings to shops. Because few shoppers visit street like Rutland Street the council are unlikely to spend money improving these areas. The areas tend to get worse and worse see Fig. 1b.
Evaluation
All the data I collected was used in some way to help complete this investigation. This investigation could have possibly been better. All the data I collected was on my own, this data may have been inaccurate because it contained by own thoughts and perceptions, for example another person may have scored certain street higher and other streets lower. In hindsight I believe my questionnaire could have been structured better and a better range of questions could have been asked. I would also like to have asked more people to complete my questionnaire, this would have given me a broader range of responses and a truer picture of what shoppers thought on Leicester CDB. I would like to have asked a wider range of age groups to complete the questionnaire. It would have been useful to interview shoppers, which would have given me the opportunity to ask more detailed questions and I could have followed up with points of interest. Although an interview would not have been practical, they are time consuming both for myself and for the shoppers being interviewed. Another potential inaccuracy was the scoring of the areas of how busy they were, this might not have been a true reflection of how busy the area is usually. There were good points of the investigation. The range of locations used for the shopping quality and street appearance survey meant I gained a comprehensive set of results. I believe I answered the main investigation question and the sub-questions very well, the results also fit in with my prediction.
When I did the shopping quality and street appearance recording sheet I scored each of the locations on how busy they were, 1 being very busy, 5 being very quiet. To improve my investigation I should have done pedestrian counts at each of the location, I would have counted how many people walked past me in three minutes and a better picture of how busy the streets were could have been compiled. As well as scoring the areas according to the criteria on the shopping quality and street appearance recording sheets I could have included additional criteria to score the locations.
Air quality= 1: Clean air
5: Poor air quality
Crime and vandalism= 1: no evidence of crime and vandalism
5: lots of evidence of crime and vandalism
Noise levels= 1: Acceptable noise levels
5: Disruptive noise levels
This last criterion could be expanded upon; I would have liked to use a decibel meter. Or I could have used a table like the one below.
Sources used
Class notes on Leicester and the CCAP plan
www.leicester.gov.uk I used this website for many of the schemes, it proved very useful.
Changing environments a class book
www.streetmap.co.uk this website provided me with Leicester street map pictures.
Appendix
- Sample questionnaires
- Shopping quality and street appearance recording sheets
- The original map I used
