Is it possible to delimit the CBD of Stamford, a Market Town in Lincolnshire?

Introduction:

Aim:This project aims to determine the central business district of Stamford, a market town in South Kesteven, Lincolnshire.

Hypotheses: 1. The number of pedestrians will decrease as we move further away from the

central area.2. Shopping quality will decrease as we move further away from the central area.3. Street appearance will decrease as we move further away from the central

area.4. Parking restrictions will decrease (from double yellow lines to single yellow

lines to no lines), as with increasing distance from the central area.5. The building height will increase as we move closer to the central area. 6. The property price will increase as we move closer to the central area.7. Litterbin concentration will be highest in the central area and lowest at the

outskirts of the town.8. With increasing distance from the central area the amount of street furniture

will decrease.9. C.C.T.V. cameras will only be positioned on the central area’s streets.10. Crime rates will decrease as the distance from the central area increases.

Location of Study Area:

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19 Miles

FIG 1.1

Stamford has been chosen for this project because of the short distance between Stamford and Oundle, this is 19 miles. Stamford itself is located on the river Welland, thirteen miles away from Peterborough. Stamford is situated on the on three main roads, the A1, the A16 and the A606.

Geographical Background:

Until the Fens were drained in the eighteenth century Stamford was the most down-stream crossing point of the river Welland. In this sense there has been a settlement at this site since Roman times, maybe even longer, however Stamford itself was established sometime in the ninth and tenth century. Stamford first grew in fame when the British road network was centralised in the eighteenth century as Stamford was in the central point on the Great North Road between London and York. This brought coaching inns, stables and many other trades to the town, bringing great economic prosperity. This economic success brought about the fine examples of architecture that can be seen today. However when the Great Northern Railway was built in1844 the coaching industry of Stamford collapsed nearly overnight, this led to a micro-climate of economic depression within Stamford and this is what preserved the beautiful buildings for the next one-hundred-and-fifty years. In nineteen-sixty Stamford’s beauty was recognised as it became the first Conservation Area in England.

Central Business Districts in General:

The central business district is generally the focal point of the city; it is the centre of the city’s commercial, social and cultural life. The CBD may display these characteristics,

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The CBD is both the centre of business and commercial activity and therefore has a very high bid rent. For this reason the CBD is usually the highest (in terms of number of floors), area of the town/city to try and increase the effective floor space and

therefore lower the high rents. The high bid rent is also the reason for which the CBD is dominated by high threshold department and chain stores, these stores are the only ones able to pay the rent, they are able to do this because they attract great numbers of people. The CBD is, therefore, usually at the centre of the local transport networks and this, along with the large numbers of shoppers, is the reason for the high volume

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of traffic or public transport. The number of people has forced local governments to start instating pedestrian precincts in the CBDs of most towns.The bid rent is again the reason for the absence of any manufacturing industry as factories are almost always of a substantial size and therefore would be very expensive to run. However there are also other reasons, the perceived ugliness of factories that would make it very difficult to obtain planning permission within the CBD and the drive towards urban conservation and various protection schemes would also make any factory hugely unpopular and again make it difficult to obtain planning permission within the CBD.

The bid rent theory states that as one moves closer to the CBD the price of land, or bid rent will increase to a peak land value point (P.L.V.P.), of which there may be several. This theory is based upon the fact that shops/business’ will be prepared to pay more in the area where they feel they will get the best commerce. Using this information the bid rents can be plotted on a 3D model, as above, and this gives an idea of the central business district.

However the CBD can even be subcategorised further, for example specialist retail and high powered business concentrates itself in the ‘inner-core’, and these are the areas nearest to the P.L.V.P., and therefore some of the most expensive parts of the CBD, as has already been explained these are the only types of companies which can afford these high bid rents. The frame of a CBD is occupied by multi-story car parks, low order goods shops, social services and so on. These are companies/services which want to be convenient without having to pay high bid rents. For example a multi storey car park’s optimum position is within walking distance of the inner core or main retail centre but still within a low bid rent area, this usually means the fringe, or frame, of the CBD. Another example, schools their ideal location includes a low bid rent but within walking distance of the main concentration of the public transport, especially bus, network. These networks usually centralise around the inner core of the CBD and therefore the ideal location for most school will be somewhere in the frame of the CBD.

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Justification of Project

Stamford is within 19 miles of Oundle School, Oundle we will therefore not waste time travelling and it will be a town known to pupils, it also leaves scope for further research should this be needed by individual candidates. It is also a market town of a fairly large size and therefore likely to have a recognisable central business district to be delimited. Projects of this sort are also very important to various institutes, such as insurers which charge higher prices within central business district, estate agents who try to charge higher prices in CBDs, and the metropolitan police who nedd to concentrate their attentions on the most important part of the town, i.e. the central business district. It is not however too large a town to be entirely mapped out but it will be big enough to produce a GCSE project of a reasonable size.Methodology:

Primary Data:

Central Area Data:

To collect the pedestrian counts for Hypothesis 1 the class was positioned in pairs at predetermined points, these were determined before we left Oundle School, see Fig.2.1, this is intelligent sampling. So we all simultaneously, to avoid counting the same person twice in different places, counted the number of pedestrians that crossed our point in five minutes, this was repeated a further two times to improve accuracy. This data was then shared within the class once we had come back from the field trip.

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FIG 6

To collect the data for hypotheses 2 and 3, the street was assessed according to a point system, (see Fig 2.2) in the same places as hypothesis 1 (see Fig.2.1), this is also an example of stratophied sampling, it was, however, subjective sampling rather than objective and therefore could have been improved by each pair assessing all of the ten points, however there were time limits to the day.

To record the parking restrictions, for hypothesis 4, we went round to central area and its boundaries and marked, to the best of our ability, the areas of double yellow, single yellow lines and no markings, on the maps provided.

For hypotheses 6, 7, and 8 the street furniture and litterbin concentration and the C.C.T.V. camera positions were all recorded simultaneously, for these observations only the central area was recorded as time restrictions curbed the scope of the investigation. The findings were again recorded on a map to the best of our ability.

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FIG 2.1

1

2 109

3

5

4

6

7 8

Transect Data:

To collect the transect data, for hypotheses 1,2 and 3, we, still in pairs, recorded pedestrian counts at regular intervals, (systematic sampling), recording building heights and land uses on a map (see Fig. 2.4) using the scoring system mentioned previously, (see Fig. 2.2).

Secondary Data:

For hypotheses 6 and 10 the, we could not collect the data ourselves. This is because it would rude and impractical to ask homeowners how much their property is worth, and also crime rates over one day would not be a true representation of Stamford’s crime rates. So the data will be gathered from various sources, such as the government website www.voa.gov.uk or hardcopy information from the Police.

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