Rate Index
- We paced the designated shops front and found out the gross rate value of the shops then determined the rate index
- This was to find out how much the shops were worth and how the price differed as you got further away from the PLVI
Shopping Quality & Street Appearance
- We gave the street and the shops a mark for there quality and appearance
- This was to see how it changed further away from the CBD
Questionnaire
- We approached people at random and asked them if they could complete the questionnaire
- This was to find out various things stated in the questionnaire
Results:
Rate Index
See – results table and choropleth map (map 1)
The shop with the highest rate index is Sainsbury’s – it is the PLVI (Peak Land Value Intersect)
Pedestrian Counts
See – results table and Isoline map (map 2)
SQ & SA
See – results table and Proportional Column map (map 3)
Our results show that the further away from the PLVI the less quality it is both the SA & SQ drop the further away. This is also represented by the price that the shops have and their shopping quality – the lower the price generally it means a poorer shopping quality.
Land Use Survey
See –map 6 which also contains results
Questionnaire
See – results and sphere of influence map (map 5) and graphs of questions
The sphere of influence is not exceptionally big. I do no think that it is high in the regional shopping hierarchy as it is surrounded by bigger competitors such as Kingston, Staines, Guilford and other big towns. Also although it was in the morning it was not very crowded even in the main shopping centres. This shows that not too many people come to shop there, I think most shoppers will live in or very near to Woking.
Conclusion:
Through the results that I obtained going to Woking, I can now conclude that;
Woking has some of the characteristics of a CBD, but not all, it has
- Land values are irregular as some are very low and some are very high ( Sainsbury’s and boots)
- A train station right by it although this blocks any growth past it and bus stations
- There are pedestrians areas around the shopping places
- There is a modern shopping mall
- There are lots of comparison stores and specialist shops which is a common characteristic of a CBD
- But there are not a lot of high multi storey buildings which is not like a normal CBD
Woking’s CBD’s growth is not going through a period of physical growth in all directions, it has slowed down a lot, there are a few vacant shops in the CBD, and with the canal on one side and the railway on the other the CBD has only the option of growing out through two sides or to jump over the railway or the canal and carry on there.
Also Woking does not have an extensive S of I because it has to many competitors which have been around for a lot longer than Woking as it is a relatively new town, and its competitors which include Kingston, Staines and Guilford are too big and popular. Therefore it is not high in the regional shopping hierarchy.
Evaluations:
I think that the hypotheses were quite worthwhile and realistic, but most where disproved or partially disproved.
For the land use survey I think the set amount of paces used should be increased from 20 to 40 paces, 20 was just too short and hampered making any real progress and wasted precious time meaning that we couldn’t get far out of the main shopping area.
For the rate index exercise pacing the shop front is not very accurate as the paces are not always the same distance and other peoples paces are different lengths.
For the pedestrian counts making a ‘gate’ across a big shop like Sainsbury’s is impractical as you can miss people and there is the situation of the same people coming in and out, so the results may have been affected.
For the questionnaire I found that mostly only old people stopped for us presumably because they had the time and we not busy, this may have made the results bias.
For the street appearance and shopping quality, we had to make our own judgment ton what it was with no real guidelines on what the scoring system was and other peoples judgment may have been very different meaning the results could be wrong.
The results were as accurate as we could make them, but due to flaws in the methods they could be affected. But we performed the exercises to the best of our abilities, and we interpreted them correctly. I think that if the project hade been performed on a weekend day or in the afternoon then the results would be considerable different. If it was done in a different CBD then the results would also been different depending on the size and popularity of the CBD.
I would improve the project by adjusting the methods to get rid of any flaws and I would do it twice or three times on different days at three different times. Also I would give more time as there was a big lack of that.
