Investigating the Spheres of influence between two major shopping centres.

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GCSE Geography Coursework – Investigating the Spheres of influence between two major shopping centres

Hypothesis: Castlepoint shopping centre will have a larger sphere of influence than Winton shopping centre and people will be willing to travel further to reach this centre.

Prediction: I predict that Castlepoint, as a new, modern, big name shopping centre will appeal much more to the younger generation of shoppers (18-40) than Winton. Winton is renowned for its old shops and variety but Castlepoint has the big name stores and retail outlets, making it a much more popular shopping centre.

Key questions:

  1. How do people rate the quality of each shopping centre? (Variety, choice etc.)
  2. What are the spheres of influence for each shopping centre and how do they change from one another?
  3. Do customers travel further to a retail park like Castlepoint rather than to a CBD?
  4. Do customers use a retail park as frequently as they do a CBD?
  5. Do customers use different types of transport to reach a retail park compared with a CBD?

Purpose and aims of the project: To investigate the above questions by means of data collection and analysis to form a valid profile of customers to the two shopping centres in question and the relative spheres of influence each shopping centre has. It will be necessary to find out certain details of shoppers, such as the area they come from and the distances from their homes. It is important to investigate the effect that each shopping centre has on the other one and also to find out what makes one centre ‘better’ than the other.

   I have chosen this hypothesis and set of key questions to test as they will hopefully suggest which type of shopping centre is more effective and more efficient.

Location of project: My project will take place in Bournemouth, a medium sized town in England (in which I live). Bournemouth is on the south coast of England, with a resident population of approximately 170,000 people. With almost 1.4 million people visiting the town every year it is no wonder it is one of the country’s top seaside tourist resorts. The precise location of the project will be in two of Bournemouth’s suburbs, one in Winton – home of its own shopping centre, and one in Charminster – where on its outskirts lays Castlepoint shopping centre.

Locations of shopping centres in relation to each other:

    There is approximately a four-mile difference in the location of the each of the shopping centres (as ‘the crow files’ – directly)

   The main way of getting to both of the shopping centres is without a doubt by motor transport. There are no train stations near the centres and it would be incredibly hard to implement that kind of transport into both of the centres.

   Castlepoint is a brand new shopping centre having just finished construction. It has many high-street retailers operating already (including Marks and Spencer’s, B&Q, Asda and Sainsburys). As it reached its completion many more retail outlets and shops were built. It has just over 3,000 car parking spaces available for customers and is built to an immaculate, modern standard. Castlepoint is situated on Castle Lane West – the A3060 – and will attract shoppers from all around the south, especially with the superb transport links it has to all major towns on the south. Castlepoint’s main transport link (by motor transport) is the A349 that it runs only a few streets away from.

 

Winton has no defined shopping centre, but it is fairly clear to see where it is located when you go to visit it. Wimborne Road, without a doubt the heart of the shopping district, is home to over 150 shops and businesses. Winton does not compete with Castlepoint in terms of ‘High-street’ Shops, but has a much more quaint and ‘original’ feel to it with the majority of its shops being singly run businesses. Winton does not also boast its own car-parking facilities, as it is simply on a street, nor does it have any directly nearby major traffic links, with the A347 being its closest neighbouring main road.

The Castlepoint Shopping Centre:

The Castlepoint Shopping Centre was opened late 2003 as a replacement to the ever-aging Hampshire Centre. The Hampshire Centre was a smaller version of the current day Castlepoint complex, with smaller shops and lesser-known supermarkets and facilities. The project, costing millions of pounds, has taken just over a year to build the main structure and will take even longer to fully allow all stores to open. It has likened in its design to American style ‘malls’ with its large range of designer outlets, such as Next and GAP, its wide range of high-street stores such as Boots, B&Q, HMV, Argos and Dixons and of course 3 of the leading supermarkets – Asda, Sainsbury’s and Marks and Spencer’s. As a sub-CBD centre it is much more difficult to attract customers. Its £200 million construction cost is a gamble, but hopefully it will pay off for Castlemore – the site’s developers.

The Winton Shopping Centre – Wimborne Road

   Wimborne road has been the heart of the Winton shopping community for

several years now and has grown enormously over the past few years to amount to what it is today. It is in the CBD of Winton, making it easy for people to access and very convenient for people to shop at. It is the homes to (quite literally) hundreds of shops, ranging from the majority small singly run businesses to the franchised and larger sized businesses. In Winton you can expect to find anything from Waitrose to ‘The Stardust Amusement arcade’. Its key features are its accessibility and easy of shopping with the hundreds of buses passing along the road every few minutes. Its range of stores includes large supermarkets like Sainsburys, Lidl and

Waitrose, franchised businesses such as Oswald Bailey and KFC and it has many singly owned businesses like fish and chip shops, bike shops, video game shops and novelty shops. Winton also has its own Police Station, medical clinic, library and several post offices.

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Key Terms I will be using in my project:

  • Hypothesis – the statement I outlined at the start of my investigation that I hope to prove either right or wrong.
  • Hierarchy – referring to Shopping hierarchy, as explained above
  • Spheres of influence – specifically referring to the area which is influenced by (in this investigation’s case) either Castlepoint shopping centre or Winton shopping centre.        
  • Anomalies – results that don’t fit in with the rest of my results set. These give obscure, twisted results if included in the analysis.
  • CBD (Central ...

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