The promenade of the North beach had the large fashionable hotels for the upper middle classes that were met at the station by horse drawn carriages. The Grand hotel at the entrance to the pier was the best of them all; on the foothills of the Great Orme were the large hotels and guest houses for the middle classes; inland from the station and the town were the boarding houses for the ‘artisan’ classes (now known as the skilled manual classes). Thousands of day-trippers arrived by excursion train and paddle steamer from the towns of Merseyside and Lancashire.
During 1914 and 1918 the First World War stopped the resort’s development. After that war, many families were left without fathers and high unemployment and economic recession meant that development never really recovered. In the 1920’s and 30’s, the area toward the West beach was developed as a residential area. The same again happened from 1939 to 1945, as the Second World War halted further developments. The 1950’s saw a brief revival and Llandudno saw the crowds return. The 1960’s and 70’s saw the growth of a package holiday abroad. A wet week in Llandudno has limited attraction compared to the guaranteed sun of the Costas and the hotels and guests houses soon emptied.
More recently, the 80’s saw the attempt to adapt the town to become more of a service centre rather than a clapped out resort:
. Aberconwy Conference centre is the main venue for North Wales
. Marks and Spencer opens as the first in North Wales
. Victoria centre, an undercover shopping mall opens in 1994 in Mostyn Street
. Mostyn Champney’s retail park opens in 95.
Now, many of the hotels are converted into holiday flats and retirement homes. The remaining hotels rely on OAP groups on cheap deals and weekend accommodation on the edge of the Snowdonia National Park. The strict planning codes meant that the Victorian structure has been preserved and prevented from becoming shabby and derelict and this itself is a selling point. On the whole, Llandudno has been successful in adapting to the changing circumstances.
Method:
Land Use Transect
- Groups must be formed with 3 people in each group. There should be 12 groups in total
- Obtain the necessary maps and forms to complete the investigation
- Each group must be dropped off a their corresponding starting points, as highlighted on the maps that were distributed
- Each group will cover a different transect to get an even account of the information
- From your starting point move forward 50 paces, stop, and then record the type of land use, using the key an forms provided
- Continue to do this until you have reached your finishing point
- However, on every 200 singles paces (100 double paces) you must observe and record the house types, environmental quality and the house age directly around where you are standing. Still fill in the land use.
Pedestrian Count:
- Take the map provided with points your group have to survey marked out
- Go to each point and perform a pedestrian count, using tallies, for 5 minutes.
- For every shop, identify the type of shop it is using the key provided.
At the end you should have filled in and collected:
Survey:
- Go to a specific area in the town
- Ask random people a series of questions including:
- Age?
- Residence?
- Employment?
- Transport?
- What is Llandudno used for?
- How often?
- Other centres used?
- Use of Mostyn Champney’s retail park?
- Use the centre more because of the Retail Park?
- Main food shopping?
- Opinions?
3. Collect he results
Limitations:
1. Land Use.
Sometimes an area can have more than one land use
2. Environmental evaluation
Can only be an opinion of the group and is not a fact
The environment can change easily
Analysis:
Land Use Zones.
As my graph shows the land use in Llandudno is mostly housing on the outskirts. There is very little open space is the Llandudno and industry only plays a small part also. The CBD is mostly retail and public services. The housing is in large groups on the outskirts and has been built surrounding the CBD. Patterns are visible as you can see on the graph.
Age of Buildings.
As my graph shows there is some correlation between the land use and the age of buildings. The service buildings for group no1 were all built pre-war. The housing however has been built, on mass, at different times, some pre-war, some inter-war and some in the 80’s and 90’s. Not many houses, however, have been built during the 50’s and 60’s. The 50’s and 60’s buildings are mostly used for retail.
Type of Housing.
There are no real set patterns for the types of housing. The 80’s and 90’s preferred to use semi-detached houses and people pre-war liked flats for their accommodation.
Environmental evaluation.
On the whole Llandudno seems to be quite a clean place and scores on average 61.35 which rates as a good in the key. The only pattern here is that the environment seems to be good in the west but in the east the environment is only proclaimed as average. The closer to the CBD you are the worse the rating of the environment is.
Pedestrian count.
This has shown me where the central part of the CBD really is. As you can see this is almost directly in the middle of Llandudno’s shopping area. This is not a shock and shows us why this part is the CBD in the first place.
The survey.
The survey has answered a few of my aims from the beginning. It has shown me what influence Llandudno has on its surrounding towns and cities. It has also helped me to find the effect of the Retail Park on Llandudno. The majority of the people surveyed said that they use the Retail Park and because of this they use Llandudno more.
Conclusion.
I have found that Llandudno hosts a whole range of retail shops and services and that the tourist attractions do their job in attracting people from other towns. My hypothesis was correct in that Llandudno has a large sphere of influence as my survey shows; people came from other places in Wales and some others even came from Manchester and Stoke-on-Trent. This means that it certainly provides for Aberconwy district and further. The land use has also been found to be in distinct areas. This was evident right from the Background information where development stopped and started continuously. This meant that new styles and tastes would be incorporated into the developments and would be evident in different parts of Llandudno.
Pedestrians showed us where the CBD would be and did so in this experiment. We found the large Retail Boulevard of Mostyn Street to be the centre of the CBD and Llandudno’s local sphere of influence.
Nearer the centre of the CBD we can find only public services and a very wide range of retail including clothing, finance, food, and furniture and tourist souvenirs. This showed us where it would be likely for the CBD to be, this prediction proved to be correct.
The Retail Park plays a major role in Llandudno’s success. This helps bring in more people to the town and so the level of tourism and customer satisfaction seems to be very high (as shown by my survey).
By Danny Emerson
