Where is Bluewater Park and why is it there?

Below are pictures of Bluewater and Gravesend.

Who shops in Bluewater?

Bluewater is very easy assessable and the catchment is very large. The catchment area covers Brighton, Guilford and north to Cambridge and Ipswich and around the coast (see the map below). Bluewater attracts 10 million shoppers within 1-hour drive and 3.8 million people within a 35-minute drive. People can get to Bluewater by car, bus, and train. Over 60 buses visit Bluewater each hour and connect well other routes. There are around thirteen thousand car-parking spaces in Bluewater where the parking is free because the land is cheaper outside in the countryside than in the towns. The local train station is in Greenhithe, which is a five-minute journey to Bluewater by shuttle bus.

What is Gravesend Town Centre like, and how does it compare with Bluewater Park?

        The two pie charts below show what different types of shops there are. There are more cloths shops in Bluewater compared to Gravesend. There are more general stores and financial offices in Gravesend, which show that the people would use Gravesend for getting small particular items generally for the home. There are more shops in Bluewater than Gravesend so you are bound to find a particular item in Bluewater.

        When at Gravesend and Bluewater I also carried out a bipolar study. The scale was 1 to 7, for example 1 being very Ugly and 7 being very Attractive. The results are as follows.

 

Bluewater had the highest total, which means that it has a better quality environment for shopping than Gravesend. This well maintained environment attracts more customers than Gravesend, which is not as well maintained.

        Below are some graphs, which show the results of the question that was carried out at Gravesend.  

        The following graphs show the results of a survey answered by manages of local shops.

From our surveys we carried out at Gravesend, we found from are results that most of the people there were female aged between 20-59 who lived about 1-5 miles away. The catchment area is quite small as the most people lived 6-10 miles away. The results from the questionnaire show that most people would shop for food and particular items. Ten people out of sixteen asked would come to Gravesend Town Centre weekly as most people in Bluewater would probably visit Bluewater monthly.

What has been the impact of Bluewater Park since it opened in March 1999?

From the survey, halve of the shop managers in Gravesend think there has been a change in Gravesend since the opening of Bluewater. There are fewer customers and less trade as previous customers are now shopping at Bluewater. In result shops have closed down and an effort to attract more people is underway.

More visitors have come into the East Thames Corridor from different regions to shop at Bluewater. More jobs have also been made at Bluewater, which has decreased employment rates in the area which where low. Bluewater has also given the East Thames Corridor a new modern image, which will attract people and business into the area. This will affect house prices, which will rise, as the area becomes a more popular place to live in. The cost of renting shops units may increase as well which may lead to some small shops shutting down as they can not pay the rent and also bring more big chain shops into the area. The traffic will also be affected as more people use the motorways to get to Bluewater. This may mean that roads may have to be made wider to handle the traffic more efficiently. The choice of shopping centres will change as well as people will prefer to got to Bluewater because of the large number of shops and well maintained facility.

Has Bluewater Park contributed to the economic regeneration of the East Thames Corridor?

        Since the opening Bluewater Park, more visitors have come to the East Thames Corridor. It has also brought more trade and wealth into Kent. Local Shopping Centres have not lost much trade. Bluewater will also be beneficial, as it is a possible link to Europe through the new high-speed rail link between the Cannel Tunnel and London, which stops at planned Ebbsfleet station being near the shopping complex. The negative impacts are cancelled out by the large amount of positive points making Bluewater a beneficial and positive impact on the East Thames Corridor.