- We started our transects at 9:00 am for the reason that the Town centre will be less crowded.
- The first place we went to draw our transects was Wellgate, as it is nearest to school, at the bottom of Mansfield Road.
- The first transect went from Wellgate along College Street to Effingham Street to the library as this is a popular area.
- The second transect went from Ship Hill along High Street to Doncaster Gate Hospital.
- To complete the transects I used a key and noted down letters which symbolised the different types of services available.
- To neaten my transects I used a colour code and used squared paper. Then I also transferred my transect onto a large A3 map of Rotherham Town.
Interpretation of Transect
From my results I can clearly see that my hypothesizes are correct. The most obvious is the answer to hypothesis three because the transects I drew show numerous vacated shops especially along the High Street. Something else which is easy to spot is the similarity in the same types of shops which refers to hypothesis one. For example on Wellgate there are 5 hairdressers and 9 clothing stores which shows there is hardly any variety in shops along this road especially at this rate. However Effingham Street and College Street have a larger variety of shops etc and they also have lager big brand shops such as Woolworths, this area is also pedestrianised making it more accessible and safer for shoppers. There is also a multi storey car park, bus stops, parking bays, car parks, double yellow lines, traffic lights and no parking at any times signs to control traffic amount and to increase safety for the public. The pedestrianised areas have more comparison shops which attract more people and it is in a safe area which proves my hypothesis two. All the small convenient shops are clustered together along Wellgate and High Street, making the variety in those area small and as these are major parts of the Town centre it proves my hypothesis one.
Evaluation of Overall Transect
The time we had to complete our rough transects was not long enough because nearing the end we had to rush around to finish collecting our data so this caused inaccuracy. On the day we went out to do our transects it rained so this slowed us down. Some of the results I wrote down were different to other students making results unreliable. Because of the rushing around papers were flying everywhere so we should have taken clipboards or used a sketch book. Another factor which made my transect unreliable was using the key I chose because the key was complicated and it took time to find the correct symbol for the different places. The traffic along High Street also slowed us down as we did this second so later on in the day when people would be going to work etc. Another error we made was guessing what type of shop or business some buildings were as this was unclear.
The big map we had to transfer our results onto was quite old and I had more shops and buildings on my hand drawn transect then there was on the big map so I had to ‘twist’ the big map to fit my transect. The big map was from a birds eye vie so some of the shops and buildings could not fit on as they were one on top of the other. To give advice to other people doing this transect I would say to use a clipboard or a sketchbook, use the simpler key, take your time, check the weather forecast before going out, and to start early in the morning.
Overall my results are not completely accurate but at the same time are not completely wrong so I can use them reliably. The problems that I came across affect the reliability of my data so the conclusions I made are only as good as my data would allow.