Does Kingston Have a Clearly Identifiable Central Business District (Cbd)?

DOES KINGSTON HAVE A CLEARLY IDENTIFIABLE CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT (CBD)?

Introduction

Kingston-upon-Thames is the county town of Surrey. As its name suggests, it lies on the river Thames in between Twickenham and Hampton Court. It is the area’s biggest shopping centre, boasting a wide variety of stores and shops located mainly around the pedestrianised centre and the old market, for example like

The Bentalls Centre and The John Lewis Centre. The shopping centre attracts many visitors, especially at weekends. With a population of approximately 150,000, Kingston has a university and many schools, including Kingston Grammar and Tiffin Boys and Girls. It also has a hospital, law courts and boasts the headquarters of Surrey County Council. Kingston has a big new leisure complex, the Rotunda, which has 14 cinemas, bowling, a fitness club and restaurants. There is also a council-run sports centre, the Kingfisher, which has two swimming pools, a gym and squash courts. These also attract many visitors. Although many residents are employed locally, Kingston is also a commuter town with many people travelling daily to London to work. There are 71,987 men and 75,286 women in Kingston, with 10, 340 people over the age of 75 – just under 7%. There are approximately 39.5 residents per hectare, which shows that Kingston is quite densely populated.

Aims

The aim for this project is to find out whether Kingston has a clearly identifiable central business district. It usually is the most accessible part of the town, in the middle and where the land values are therefore the highest. We will be looking at the variations in land use across a town’s centre amongst many other methods to help me come to a conclusion.
Also we are trying to find out from where the sphere of influence is of Kingston and what shoppers think of Kingston, that is our aim in our questionnaire. I intend to collect and interpret data from different areas of the town centre and at different times to increase the accuracy of my results. I intend to show the detail of my results as well as the broad conclusions that can be drawn from them. We will be doing a conclusion of the results and an evaluation to see whether factors that are unavoidable and some, which are avoidable, could have affected my methods and how I could improve on them to give better results.

Hypotheses

My predictions for the first aim are: -

The pedestrian count will be the highest in the CBD as people arrive for work and to shop. This is because lots of people work in shops and offices that work in the central business district; there will be lots of shoppers here too. There also will be lots of people due to Kingston being pedestrianised in the CBD and also near to the CBD there is the node of transport networks, which will bring lots of people from far to Kingston.

The traffic count will increase in a similar ...

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Hypotheses

My predictions for the first aim are: -

The traffic count will increase in a similar way. The flow of traffic will be the greatest around the edge of the CBD as some people will be using Kingston as a bypass to other destinations and also this is because there are all sorts of measures to keep traffic out of the CBD for example pedestrianisation, the uses of public transport and the one-way system in Kingston.

The land use survey also will change frequently as there are many places to go and see in Kingston. For example, in one square there will be land used for housing while in the square next to it the land will be used for business, e.g. a shopping mall or similar. Most of the area we are covering though will consist mainly of shopping units such as The Bentall Centre and John Lewis. But there are many other land uses in Kingston so we will see a variation.

The building height survey will obviously vary, as there is a wide range of shops offices and housing in Kingston. But in some places, such as those with department stores, the same height will stretch across a number of grid squares. The cost of land in the centre of Kingston will be higher which means that the buildings in the centre are often forced upwards.

Vertical Zoning will change in some grid squares as some buildings have shops on one floor and offices on another, this will probably vary from square to square. But also, of course when there is a big department store the vertical zoning will be the same as there are only shops and no other usage of the building in that grid square.

The Environmental Quality Survey (EQ) will be different everywhere because those carrying out the survey will be conducting it in different places and at different times, which will all be completely different all over Kingston.

The answers to the questionnaires will be different because not everyone comes to Kingston for shopping; some people come to work amongst other things. Where the people we ask come from will also be different as lots of people come from quite far away to Kingston and they came from different areas.

Methodology

For the pedestrian count we will tally every person who comes in front of us. This excludes cyclists, pushchairs. On large roads we’ll just count one side of the road. This will be recorded on our sheets, which is in the appendix, and the count will only last for five minutes exactly. This will be done at several points in Kingston to show where the bulk of people are going (refer to map). This will be done twice at, 10.15-10.20 and 12.15-12.20, to avoid freak results. Two people will do it, one person tallying up the data, the other counting.

Using the same method we will do the traffic count (refer to tally sheet). We will tally every type of vehicle coming past us, but only in one direction, because it is harder to collect data when there are lots of cars racing by. This will last exactly ten minutes. This is to be done in one particular point in each of the nine designated zones where the bulk of traffic will be. This starts at 11.15 and finishes at 11.25.

For the Land use survey, groups of people will collect data in selected areas and recorded the building type in each square. But we will only record the land use in the ground floor. If there is a square sharing with another land use, we will record them both. We will put a letter in the grid squares to show what type of land use there is in that area.

For the building height survey we will record the number of storeys of the average building in each grid square.

For vertical zoning, we will record whether land use varies from floor to floor, for example, ground floor is a shop, and first floor is offices.

The environmental quality survey will be done after the first pedestrian count, and in the same place. We will put a tick in the appropriate box for each EQ factor. The scale ranges from –3 to +3. Look around the surrounding area and record our opinion down on the sheet. The scale we will be using is called a bi-polar scale, when it is recorded; calculate the net score at each location.

The Questionnaire will be done twice during the morning. We will ask members of the public about their perception of Kingston. People will be chosen at random but in each of the different zones. We will ask two different people of different ages, to get a range of results. The aim is to get a set of results from people both young and old, to give us a wider view of where people come from and what they’re doing in Kingston.

Data Interpretation

Pedestrian Isopleth Map:

The main bulk of people were in the area where there are the most amount of shops and offices. This is in Clarence Street which is pedestrianised. As the street is pedestrianised it means that lots of people can walk through the area with no trouble at all.