In the 1990’s an attempt was made to make the CBD a more attractive shopping environment and an enjoyable place to be. Areas of the CBD were renovated with newer, more attractive buildings, new roads, and pedestrianised areas in the town centre. These areas were called zones of improvement. The pedestrianised walkways made shopping in the CBD much more relaxed and spacious. The council also made sure the town centres were regularly cleaned so they did not feel run down and dirty.
A large problem with CBD’s was the space for parking. In the retail parks there is plenty of space for parking because the land is plentiful. In the CBD; multi-storey car parks were built because they do not use up much land space, but can hold lots of cars. Councils in some areas also brought in a ‘park and ride’ facility. This means you can park outside of town and catch a bus into the centre of town. This was supposed to relieve the traffic congestion in the CBD and to allow for more parking spaces in town.
In Torbay, the Torquay CBD is a pedestrianised, spacious shopping environment. It mainly contains tourist shops and restaurants near to the sea front. Further up the high street there is a Tesco Metro; which doesn’t have a very wide range of products because it is only on a small plot of land.
Outside of town there is the Willows retail park. Containing a M&S, Sainsbury’s, Comet, Boots, Mothercare, Next and Carpet Right. This is convenient for shoppers because they don’t have the inconvenience of getting into town and all the shops they need to go to are near by and have large ranges of products.
The following maps show the location of Torbay in the South Western county of Devon.
Torbay is a small metropolis, made up of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham. Our investigations took place in Torquay; at both the CBD and the Willows retail park.
