However throughout the day the weather improved, so we modified our methods and worked individually to collect the data, during the afternoon season.
All the information what was collected helped us answer the question because when we started the count at site 1(at the sea front) the number of pedestrians and vehicles were high, in addition this number decreased until we got to section 6 where it rose significantly.
The traffic and pedestrian count information is represented below –
Site 1-Promenade
Site 2-Reads Avenue
Site 3-rishton Street
Site 4-palatine road
Site 5-ribble Street
Site 6-nursery road
Environmental quality survey
Secondly we collected data for in our opinion the environment was maintained throughout the transect. To collect this data we used a rating system from (0-3) (0 –the worst and 3 the best). When doing this we had to keep several aspects of the environment in mind there were seven categories where we rated the quality of the environment-
- Litter
- Care of road pavements
- Trees,shrubs,grass verges
- Street furniture(lamposts,seats,telephone boxes etc)
- Traffic
- Noise
- Road signs
Using a rating system to collect this data was easy and very efficient. Using this method show that we used originality because we collected this data with our opinions and discussing what would be a fair number to present, we did this process for each site which shows our method was fair in testing.
However, when we collected our results we saw not much of a significant change going inland into blackpool,alot of factors could be to blame 4 this for example the time of day ,and the weather patterns.
The only changes what were visible was that the traffic near the sea was high but inland is gradually became lower, this answers the hypothesis that Blackpool changes with distance from the sea.
The environmental quality survey is represented below –
Site 1-Promenade
Site 2-reeds Avenue
Site 3-rishton Street
Site 4-palatine road
Site 5-ribble Street
Site 6-nursery road
The land Use Transect
The land use transect was used throughout the morning. Data was collected by labeling every building with numbers first, and colours when a key was created. We distributed the buildings like this-
1) Amusements/entertainment
2) Gift shops
3) Food outlets
4) Shops (excluding gift shops)
5) Financial services, banks, offices etc
6) Transports facilities-bus station, railway station
7) Large hotels
8) Guest houses & b, holiday flats
9) Houses
10) public services-fire station, hospital etc
11) Industry
12) Recreational areas-sports fields, football clubs
13) Car parks and open spaces
14) Others
When we coloured our transect ,I saw alot of differences between the beginning and end. From this I discovered at the sea front there were amusement and entertainment shops, however in the middle it was densely populated with guest houses and normal terraced houses.
The next hypothesis was answered next was that tourist patterns are different now, compared on how they used to be in the Victorian times.
The Questionnaire
To collect information for the questionnaire I walk around various areas of Blackpool and asked 20 people so spend some time to answer my questionnaire. I did this to try and understand why people come to Blackpool and where a lot of these people came from. This questionnaire was a long process but in the end it was successful because I got a good idea of the type of people visit blackpool found out that the majority of people traveled by car ,this is a big comparison to how it was done in the Victorian times, because there were no cars then competition to get into a place such as blackpool was very hard, however in the questionnaire when I asked about how long it took it seems a lot of people from long distances don’t have the commitment to get to blackpool like they used to. In addition to this, it means that a lot of people must go to other sea resources abroad; this was shown in the questionnaire as 14 out of 20 people go to other places other than Blackpool. This questionnaire showed a lot of differences between now and how it was in the Victorian times.
Tax discs
For this I collected all the places cars in blackpool have been taxed from ,doing this would allow me to know where the person lived or where the person has traveled from to get to Blackpool will be shown on the table below it shows that the majority of people in blackpool are from Lancashire. This also backs up my point that people who come to Blackpool down travel very far distances.
Coach origins
This was done the same way as tax discs only this time wit coaches the majority of couches seen were on the sea front.
Conclusion
I feel my all my results are not as accurate as they could be mainly because this investigation was done in a week day, this would mean there would not be a lot of tourist out. If I was to do an investigation like this again I think it is recommendable that it should be done on a weekend or possibly a holiday season.
