Is there a relationship between the number of pedestrians and the environmental quality in Wisbech?
Contents Page
Contents Page
2 Map of Wisbech fig1
3 Introduction to Wisbech
4 Pedestrian Count
5 Isoline Map fig2
6 Pedestrian Count
7 Location Of Transect Figures Map fig3
8 Pedestrian Count
9 Map of Main Shopping Areas fig4
0 Land Use Map fig5
1 Land Use Map
2 Land Use Map
3 Questionnaire
4 Question 1/fig6
5 Question 2
6 Q2 Shoppers Preferences Map fig7
7 Question 3
8 Q3 Shoppers Preferences Map fig8
9 Question 4 & Graph
20 Question 5
21 Q5 Graph fig9
22 Environmental Survey
23 Environmental Survey
24 Environmental Survey
23 Environmental Survey
24 Environmental Survey
25 Environmental Survey
26 Conclusions
27 Overlay fig10
28 Conclusion
29 Conclusion and Analysis
Introduction To Wisbech
Wisbech is a town located in the county of Cambridgeshire (East of England). It can be found along the route of the River Nene. Within a few miles outside of Wisbech are two neighbouring counties - Norfolk and Lincolnshire.
Wisbech is the "Capital of The Fens" - an area of land in East Anglia which was formally marshes. The land was drained to give rich inhabitable soil.
Wisbech was a good selection as it has a bridging point, a route center and a port, the trade of the port was very important in the 18th and 19th century and much of Wisbech wealth and success came from the port. In recent years however the port has declined to ship sizes, Wisbech is left with its thriving market place and businesses.
In spite of the markets on Thursdays and Saturdays the commuters from the surrounding villages are these days drawn to larger shopping centers like the Queensgate shopping center in Peterbough, and the shops in Kings Lynn. However Wisbech still has a sphere of influence of around 10miles
The better shopping facilities and the out of town supermarkets has caused a market decline in recent years.
The major roads leading to and from Wisbech are the A47 and the A1101. These roads link Wisbech to other towns and cities nearby, such as Peterborough and Kings Lynn, See Fig 1.
Collected Data
To produce our coursework we had to go into Wisbech itself, we did this on Thursday 20th September. In Wisbech a market is held on Thursdays and so the market place was very busy, when we were in town we collected various pieces of Data and took photos. The 1st Thing we did was to collect, information for a land use survey map. Then we split up and did a pedestrian count at 1.15pm, after this we went off on our own again and asked shoppers to fill out questionnaires, and we collected our own personal information for example an environmental survey.
Pedestrian count
Our group of 15 people split up and spread around town see fig3 and produced a pedestrian count see tables 1&2 and my isoline map fig2. We recorded the number of pedestrians in various parts of the CBD for 5 minutes and multiplied this by 12 to give us an hourly rate. One major problem was the fact that the people in the center of the CBD had many pedestrians to count, and we not sure which shoppers had already walked by. If they did the problem of 'do you count them twice?' arose.
As expected the center of the CBD had the highest count of 1296 people an hour this is because the CBD attracts people because of the quality of its shops, pedestrianisation and the chain stores located there for example WH Smiths.
The lowest scoring part of town was Hill Street with the buildings on one side along which are 19th Century housing, and on the other side h are few professional offices and the rest are specialist shops such as Brian Lakeys fishing tackle shop and several florists.
These specialist shops are not as likely to attract shoppers like the chain stores will do in the center of the CBD.
When we had gathered our results I put them into a table, this allows me to put my results into other forms for example fig2 my isloine map. From table 1 I have made fig3 Which is a location of transect figures- it shows where every one stood whilst recording the pedestrian count.
TABLE 1
No.
Name
Place
No.after 5 mins
No .after 1 hour
Distance
A.Duncan
Old Market Place
22
264
250
2
A.baker
Bridge
39
468
210
3
M.Patel
Nene Quay
7
204
80
4
N.Bridges
High Street
67
804
50
5
R.Tasker
High St./Rose & Crown
00
200
75
6
D.Yatigamina
Library
27
324
90
7
S.Vernall
Alexandra Road
7
204
210
8
A.Hill
Market Exit
05
260
50
9
A.Carter
Horse Fair Entrance
08
296
20
0
C.Clarke
Center of Horse fair
39
668
50
1
M.Fleming
Hill Street
6
92
25
2
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5
R.Tasker
High St./Rose & Crown
00
200
75
6
D.Yatigamina
Library
27
324
90
7
S.Vernall
Alexandra Road
7
204
210
8
A.Hill
Market Exit
05
260
50
9
A.Carter
Horse Fair Entrance
08
296
20
0
C.Clarke
Center of Horse fair
39
668
50
1
M.Fleming
Hill Street
6
92
25
2
J.Azam
Blackfriars Road
23
276
00
3
G.Lane
Trinity Methodists
72
864
220
4
P.Grange
Upper Norfolk Street
29
348
300
5
C.Blunden
Lower Norfolk Street
9
228
400
Table 2 is a sorted list of the distance from the center of the market place, which is the CBD. As I expected, as you go away from the CBD the number of pedestrians decreases for example No.9 the distance is 20meters and the number of pedestrians is 1296 and at No.15 the distance is 400meters and the number of pedestrians is 228 after one hour. My isoline map fig2 also shows this as the center of the CBD has the highest number of people, with the darkest colour, and as you go outwards to the edge of town the colours get lighter as the amount of pedestrians goes down.
TABLE 2
No.
Name
Place
No.after 5 mins
No .after 1 hour
Distance
9
A.Carter
Horse Fair Entrance
08
296
20
8
A.Hill
Market Exit
05
260
50
0
C.Clarke
Center of Horse fair
39
668
50
5
R.Tasker
High St./Rose & Crown
00
200
75
6
D.Yatigamina
Library
27
324
90
2
J.Azam
Blackfriars Road
23
276
00
1
M.Fleming
Hill Street
6
92
25
4
N.Bridges
High Street
67
804
50
3
M.Patel
Nene Quay
7
204
80
2
A.baker
Bridge
39
468
210
7
S.Vernall
Alexandra Road
7
204
210
3
G.Lane
Trinity Methodists
72
864
220
A.Duncan
Old Market Place
22
264
250
4
P.Grange
Upper Norfolk Street
29
348
300
5
C.Blunden
Lower Norfolk Street
9
228
400
I think we could improve our pedestrian count by having more people in various parts of town however we were unable to do this as we only have 15 people in our set.
Land Use Map
The next bit of data collected went into producing a land use survey, we produced this by pairing off and taking a section of town for each of the pairs. We recorded which group the buildings in our particular area were classed in/as. When were back in the classroom we transferred this data onto a larger map as we exchanged information with other members of the set to complete the other sections of town. This proved a very effected method and enabled me to generate fig5.
From the map produced I have worked out the 6 main shopping areas and put them on another small map over the page, fig4 these areas are, The Market Place, The Old Market Place, Norfolk Street, High Street, The Horsefair and Hill Street.
Norfolk Street is an old part of Wisbech, it is not very well maintained and so is not a popular area for tourists because of its low historical importance and the quality and diversity of shops. The shops found in
Norfolk Street are service shops such as the pet shop, specialist shops such as the Chemist and House hold shops like the hardware store.
The shops in Norfolk Street tend to be small because of the structural design of the old street. So shops are small shops like the pet store or are larger service shops, which have been converted by the walls being knocked though to give large joint buildings.
The High Street is next to the entrance of the Market Place. This Street comprises of clothes shops and specialist shops and empty shops. There are a large number of empty shops, this maybe because of the price of the shops due to its closeness to the market place, which is one of the main shopping areas in Wisbech.
Left shows just some of the empty shops along one side of the High Street.
The Old Market Place has specialist shops, service shops and financial offices. Also the old market place has a garden area.
The old market place is a very old part of Wisbech, however it is also very well maintained. The old buildings are well kept a now house major banks such as Barkelys.
The old market Place used to be home to the weekly markets held on Saturdays and Thursdays.
The Market Place, which is now where the markets are held, is much bigger than the Old Market place. This area has all sorts of shops but mainly national chain stores. The only time you will ever see an empty shop in the Market place is when it has been sold or is under new ownership.
The Horsefair is the modern part of town and also has no empty shops this area is home to most of the chain stores in Wisbech such as Argos, Burtons, Boots, Bakers Oven, Superdrug, New Look and many more.
Hill Street is just off the Horsefair but this area is still an old part of Wisbech and isn't as modern as its neighboring area the Horsefair. Hill Street has a few professional offices and the rest are specialist shops.
Questionnaire
This was the most time consuming piece of data we had to collect as
It meant stopping suitable shoppers and requesting that they help fill out one of my questionnaires. My Questionnaires have five questions. The problems faced in town were; approaching people who looked as if they had time to fill out the questionnaire. Also if I had time it would have been better if I had asked one hundred people or maybe even more. In the time I had I managed to get 22 questionnaires filled out. I have reviewed the results for each of the questions and produced suitable methods of showing the data. The page before shows what my questionnaire looks like.
Q1 'DO You Visit The Garden Ares Of Wisbech Regularly Or Just In Passing?'
The graph on the page fig6 Are the results from question 1, the results are shown on a bar graph. In total 72% of shoppers in Wisbech at least pass though the garden areas of Wisbech however 36% only pass through them to get to the shops. The other 36% would possibly be the elderly percentage of the population, who enjoy the garden areas of Wisbech.
Old market garden area. Church garden area.
Q2
In question 2 the results show that people don't tend to worry about the quality of the town, see fig7 Norfolk Street is of low environmental quality but has the joint highest percent of were people prefer to shop. The Horsefair is the most modern part of Wisbech and the results of the graph show this as well with 50% of people asked classing it as having the highest environmental quality.
Norfolk Street has a few clothes shops and other specialists stores, which have there a long time and people are used to shopping there, as it is an old part of Wisbech.
The Horsefair has a lot of chain stores like the Halifax and Woolworths and is very poplar.
Q3
Q4
My results from question four on my questionnaire show people would prefer a pleasant environment to shop in with 70% of people saying that it would encourage them to shop.
The Horsefair being a well looked after modern part of Wisbech has a pleasant environment to shop in.
Q5
The results from fig9 shows what people would prefer to see in the shopping areas of Wisbech. Many parts of Wisbech have these items such as the Horsefair with modern buildings, litterbins, hanging baskets and traffic free areas.
Left is the Horsefair shopping area showing its modern buildings and flower tubs.
The old market place has the other favored items such as its well-maintained old buildings and trees and bushes in the garden area.
Left again is the old market place garden area.
This maybe why the horsefair has the joint highest shopping preference and why the old market is joint second highest preference, see fig7.
Environmental Survey
Area
Litter
Building
Quality
Garden
Quality
Total Out of 15
Horsefair
2
2
5
Old Market Place
2
2
5
High Street
3
3
5
1
Hill Street
3
4
5
2
Market Place
2/5
2
3
7/10
Norfolk Street
4
4
5
3
Scoring
: Best - The area has a very low amount of litter.
- The area has a lot of well-kept garden areas or hanging baskets and or tubs of flowers.
- The buildings are either nice modern buildings or very well
maintained old buildings.
2: Very Good - The area has a low amount of litter.
- The area has a substantial amount of garden area or hanging baskets and or tubs of flowers.
- The buildings are either modern buildings or well-maintained old buildings.
3: Average - The area has an average amount of litter.
- The area has average garden areas or badly looked after garden areas.
- The buildings are average quality of either modern or old buildings.
4: Below Average - The area has a large amount of litter.
- The area has very little garden areas.
- The buildings are of low quality, either modern or old buildings.
5: Poor - The area has an unsightly amount of litter.
- The area has average garden areas or badly looked after garden areas.
- The buildings are very bad quality of either modern or old buildings.
I gave the 'litter' in the 'market place' a 2/5, altering the total to 7/10 as, we went on a market day and the market place had a lot of litter everywhere and so received a score of 5. Usually the market place is well looked after and so would usually receive a score of 2 making a total of 7.
The most popular areas were the horsefair and the old market place
each scoring 5 out of 15 (15 being the worst and 3 being the best).
I think the horsefair was joint highest as it is the most modern part of town and has a lot of chain stores. These chain stores are placed in areas were the shoppers are attracted to. The shoppers are attracted to the horsefair as it is predestriansed and shoppers feel safe in this area. Also I think that because the horsefair is modern and it got a high building quality scoring of 1 that it attracts the shoppers. This is also show in question 3 on my questionnaire with the horsefair scoring the highest with 50% of shoppers giving the highest environmental quality. And in question 4 with 70% of shoppers saying that, a pleasant environment encourages you to shop.
Businesses place there shops in these places as they attract the most amount of shoppers, as shown in the pedestrian count with the horsefair having the most amount of pedestrians there, 1668 an hour.
The businesses in the horsefair make a very good profit, as there are no empty shops there, showing that there is no need to close as the shops are making a profit.
The businesses make such a good profit as the shoppers attracted to the areas make a large threshold, and the chain
Stores like Burtons and Peacocks mainly sell middle order goods, also
there are chain stores like Bakers Oven which sells low order goods.
There is not much litter at all in the horsefair. The litter in the area of the horsefair tends come from the bus stop as people drop bags or crisps and sweet wrappers as the wait for their bus.
The garden features in the horsefair are simple but affective, raised flowerbeds with benches around them, the horsefair also has a lot of hanging baskets, both of which are well kept.
I think that the old market place got joint highest on the survey because that it is an old area of Wisbech that is very well kept.
The shops around the old market tend to be specialist shops and service shops, with major banks like Barkelys having large offices there.
The old market place is an ideal place for banks due to the fact that the old buildings give prestige and are large, also the short stay car parking is ideal as the banks are used quickly and people don't need to park their cars for long.
The garden area in the old market place comprises mainly of benches over looking the gardens, the River Nene, the Clarkson memorial
and the entrance to the high street over the river.
Norfolk Street scored the lowest on the environmental survey with 13 out of 15 as the buildings are very old and there are a lot of empty shops there. See below
Norfolk Street unlike the horsefair isn't pedestrianised and is quite dangerous as it has very narrow uneven pavements. This makes it very unsafe for pedestrians.
The Narrow Pavements and narrow road give Norfolk Street a low environmental quality.
There is quite a bad litter problem in Norfolk Street as it is very hard for road sweepers to get down the narrow pavements. Also much of the litter steams from the vast amount of fast food outlets down the street, and there is no room for bins on the narrow pavements.
The shops found down Norfolk Street are household shops like the curtain shop, specialist shops like the Chemist and the florists.
Also there are large numbers of service shops such as the Kebab shop.
Conclusions
I have taken my results from my isoline map and my results from my environmental survey and produced an overlay. This will show which the most popular areas are and how high a score the area received in the survey. This should help me answer my hypothesis, 'Is There A Relationship Between The Number Of Pedestrians And The Environmental Quality In Different Areas Of The CDB?' as it will indicate a clear picture of which areas have the highest number of pedestrians and which are of high environmental quality.
The Horsefair along with the Market Place is classed as the CBD due to it being the area with the most amounts of pedestrians and chain shops like Somerfield and Argos.
The Horsefair scored joint highest on the Environmental survey with a score of 5 (3 being the lowest and 15 being the highest) this area also had the highest amount of pedestrians-1500+, suggesting that people shop there because of its high Environmental quality. This is backed up by the fact that the results from questions 2 and 3 which indicates that people do indeed prefer to shop in areas with high environmental quality. As the Horsefair scored joint highest in question 2 (Q2 'Which Areas Of Wisbech DO You Prefer To Shop In?'). And in question 3 it scored the highest by a long way (Q3 'Which Areas Do You Consider To Have The Highest Environmental Quality?').
The next high scoring area is the Market Place with 1000-1500 people there an hour and with an environmental score of 7/10, this is the other major shopping area in Wisbech along with the Horsefair. I think the Market Place has a high shop quality and therefore encouraging people to shop there. Also the Market Place is home too many chain stores like Woolworths and WH Smiths attracting pedestrians
Hill Street, The High Street and Norfolk have the lowest environmental quality and are in the area with a low pedestrian count.
Hill Street is a small back street near the Horsefair the isoline of 1000 cuts though Hill Street one side the 1000-1500 side is closest to the Horsefair and the 500-1000 side is going away from the CBD and the Horsefair showing people are attracted to the Horsefair.
Norfolk Street is in the outskirts of the main shopping area of Wisbech and therefore has the least amount of pedestrians for a shopping area, 228 recorded in an hour. Norfolk Street also has a very low environmental quality of 13.
The Old Market Place is unusually a main shopping area outside of the center of the CBD, and has one of the lowest pedestrian counts 264. However the Old Market Place had the joint highest environmental quality score.
I think the Old Market Place has a low pedestrian count as it is over the river and this causes shoppers inconvince as they have to walk a long way from the center of the CBD- The Horsefair and The Market Place. Also I think the shoppers are not attracted to the Old Market Place as it has a lack of chain stores the only chain store being Barkelys bank. The Old Market Place has a high environmental quality as it has well maintained old buildings and a nice garden area.
Conclusion and Analysis
CONCLUSION
I have concluded from my collected data and my overlay that there is a relationship between the number of pedestrians and the environmental quality in Wisbech. I have concluded that as u get closer to the PLVI or the centre of the CBD the environmental quality gets higher and the amount of pedestrians also gets higher.
The only exception to this is the Old Market Place, which is over the river and about 300meters away from the PLVI, as the Old Market Place has a high environmental quality but a low amount of pedestrians.
ANALYSIS
I think that my collected data was good and helped me piece together my coursework well. The only problem I faced was time; I didn't have enough time to ask a lot of people to fill out my questionnaire.
Also for the pedestrian count we should have counted the number of pedestrians for an hour, however this would have became tedious and we didn't have enough time to do this anyway.
The land use map was also hard to do as the map we filled out was devised from an aerial photo and the we couldn't access the ground behind the shops to identify what that land was used for.
However overall I think my collected data went well and the photos and graphs deduced from my data goes well with my write up.
Callum Blunden Page 1 GCSE Geography Coursework
