Going from right to left along the transect we first see a break in housing in the category of Professional Services which is the third building across from Beach Street. There are another 2 professional services across from Agnew Street. These are places like dental surgeries and there is a vetinary surgery here. These services are usually found just outside the CBD because many people can get here easily as it is on a main road. If it was on a small side street somewhere it would be hard to find and lots of people live nearby in the local houses. To put a solicitors in the centre of the CBD would be stupid as the land value is too high for the use of the building so they are placed just outside within reach of the CBD and residential areas. This is not just found in Lytham as on South King Street in Blackpool there is a solicitors, an estate agents and a registration office which is all a within 5 minutes walking distance from Blackpool Town Centre. A lot of professional services can be found on the first or second floors closer to the CBD as it can be very convenient and not cost as much as a space on the ground floor. Being in these businesses does not matter if they are on the ground floor because a solicitors does not advertise a lot in its windows. An estate agent’s is a professional service that does help to be on the ground floor as they often display houses for sale in the windows.
On Sheet 2 the majority of buildings are with 2/3 storeys with a major shop, specialist shop, convenience shop catering and a few professional services on the ground floor. Above the first floor there are only a few shops and some storage but mainly residential. There are a few buildings under a state of change but only a minority as showed on pie chart ‘14’. From the left of the page up to the Bannister Street junction not 1 ground floor building is residential since the land value is just too high. The PRVP, Boots, is found near here meaning that this area has the highest land value in the town. Looking on transect 2 shows that most of the ground floor is used by shops with others found in small groups. No one would now build a house on the ground floor but not too far down the road at the Bannister Street junction all commercial activity on one side of the road ends. This is because there are a row of old fisherman’s houses there. These buildings would have been converted into shops or different buildings would have been built more recently as the town has grown but these houses were built when Lytham was still a very small fishing village. The houses are quite large cottages with gardens surrounding the house which is so unusual so near to the CBD. The cottages are listed properties and cannot be altered in any way so the CBD can only grow on the other side of the road. It has grown on the other side of the road but only until the Station Road junction where residential areas start to grow again. This junction is just about the end of the CBD.
Above a lot of the shops in the CBD are flats. This is shown very well on Pie Chart ‘7’, there are 92 residential spaces and the next highest number is only 4. Since the ground floor value is very high and not many shops and cafes use the floors above them these spare floors are used as storage or rented/sold as flats. A lot of people will want to live in these flats as they are right in the centre of the CBD and to go to the shops is only a 2-minute walk. Some older people for instance may not like living in these flats because of the noise and the walking up stairs to get home. Older people live outside of the CBD for these reasons. Shop owners may also want to live above their shop instead of commuting from another town every day.
On sheet 3 of the transect it is mainly all residential with corner shops spread at most road junctions. I expect the shop owners to live above their shop or very close at least because the shops have probably been there for a long time and when an owner bought the shop they probably got the flat accompanying it. There are no 3 storey buildings and only residential buildings occupying the first floor. See Pie Chart ‘15’ for all buildings in the section, 98% of the buildings are Residential. There are an unusually high number of road junctions on the East side of the road. There is also very few on the opposite side which is because behind the buildings on the West Side there are only large hotels because it is very close to the Promenade. On the East side however there are lots more roads leading inland where there are lots more residential areas. The Hospital at the end of the Transect is very large as it does not fully fit onto the transect. It is in a very good place as there are plenty of main roads giving ambulance access from all over the town. As it is quite far away from the PRVP the land would not have been too expensive to develop.
I accept that land use changes with increasing distance from the PRVP, as there are lots of shops surrounding the PRVP and the further away, the more the residential areas that is a change. If we look at the next 25 buildings on the ground floor on either side of the PRVP and add them up using transect 2 and then we add up another 25 buildings outside of the first 25 we should find a massive change. I have produced a Chart to show this, it is titled ‘Land Usage Around the PRVP’. This shows that in 0-25 Buildings there are 66 shops and no houses but in 26-50 Buildings there are 15 shops and 63 houses. This clearly shows a massive change in buildings.
