Comparing Shrewsbury an Old Town an Telfrd a Purpose Build New Town

I have collected the results for my three hypotheses by using a questionnaire, audit, land use map, pedestrian count and the yellow pages/yell.com. I did all of these in both Shrewsbury and Telford. The question that I am answering is “What are the similarities and differences in landuse and service provision between a ‘new town’ Telford and a traditional ‘organic’ town Shrewsbury?”

1. My first hypothesis is: Telford will have better leisure facilities than Shrewsbury because it is a new town.

2. My second hypothesis is: People will travel further to Shrewsbury than Telford because it has a better range of shopping facilities.

3. My third hypothesis is: Telford offers a better service provision than Shrewsbury because it is a purpose built new town.

To answer my first hypothesis “Telford will have better leisure facilities than Shrewsbury because it is a new town.” I have produced a questionnaire to survey 11 people; I created an audit, researched leisure facilities on yell.com and the yellow pages. I then used these results to make tables and graphs (these are on pages…..) My first question “How did you travel here today?” will help me to see what methods of travel people use. In Shrewsbury no-one travelled by bike, train or other. One person walked, three people travelled by bus and eight people travelled by car. In Telford no-one travelled by bike or other. One person travelled by bus, one person walked, one person travelled by train and eight people travelled by car.

Question 2 “How far did you travel to get here” will show me that if for example if people live far away from Shrewsbury but still travel there for it’s leisure or shopping facilities. No-one travelled between 6-10 or 16-20 miles to get to Shrewsbury. Two people travelled 21 or more miles, four people travelled between 0 and 5 miles and 5 people travelled between 11 and 15to get to Shrewsbury. In Telford no-one travelled between 6-10 or 16-20 miles to get to Telford. Four people travelled between 0 and 5 miles, six people travelled between 11 and 15 and 1 person travelled 21 or more miles.

Question 3 “What is your purpose of being here today?” in Shrewsbury no-one travelled for business, leisure or historical architecture. One person said that they were just visiting; two people travelled to Shrewsbury for other and eight people went to Shrewsbury for its leisure facilities. In Telford no-one travelled for business or other. Two people business and for leisure, three people travelled for Telford’s shopping facilities and four people said that they were just visiting.

Question 4 “Which town out of Shrewsbury and Telford do you think has the better leisure facilities?” In Shrewsbury five out of eleven people said that they thought Shrewsbury had the better leisure facilities and six people said that they thought Telford had the better leisure facilities. In Telford three people out of eleven people said that they thought that Shrewsbury had the better leisure facilities, seven out of eleven people said that they thought that Telford had the better leisure facilities and 1 person thought that both towns had an equal amount of leisure facilities. I would expect to find this because Telford is a new purpose built town.

Question 5 “Would you prefer to go to Shrewsbury or Telford for its leisure facilities?” In Shrewsbury five out of eleven people said that they would prefer to go to Shrewsbury for its leisure facilities and 6 out of eleven people said that they would prefer to go to Telford for its leisure facilities. In Telford three out of eleven people said that they would prefer to go to Shrewsbury for it’s leisure facilities, seven out of eleven people said that they would prefer to go to Telford for it’s leisure facilities and one person said that they wouldn’t mind which town they went to as they thought that both towns had equal leisure facilities. This proves that Telford has better leisure facilities than Shrewsbury.

Question 6 “Which town is easier for you to get to?” In Shrewsbury seven out of eleven people said that it was easier for them to travel to Shrewsbury and four out of eleven people said that it was easier for them to travel to Telford. This shows that although for four people it was easier for them to go to Telford they still chose to travel to Shrewsbury. In Telford five out of eleven people said that it was easier for them to go to Shrewsbury and six out of eleven people said that it was easier for them to go to Telford. This shows that although for five people it was easier for them to go to Shrewsbury they still chose to travel to Telford.

Question 9 “Which town is the most developed?” In Shrewsbury three out of eleven people thought that Shrewsbury was the most developed town and the other nine people thought that Telford was the most developed. In Telford 1 person thought that Shrewsbury was the most developed and ten out of eleven people thought that Telford was the most developed. This would make sense because Telford is a “new purpose built” town and therefore would be more developed than a “traditional organic” town, Shrewsbury.

These questions and answers will help me to answer my first hypothesis as they give me the opinions of local people about landuse and service provision in Shrewsbury and Telford. My questionnaires are on pages……

Another method to help me answer my first hypothesis is an audit. In Shrewsbury we took three audits, one in the Pride Hill shopping centre, one in the pride hill street and one in high street. We rated the following factors; Accessibility, Positioning of main shops, Cleanliness of town, Variety of leisure facilities, Historic buildings, Positioning of car parks, Appearance of shopping area, Variety of shops, Quality of open space, Amount of open space.

The Pride Hill shopping centre scores were; 3, 4, 3, 4, 5, 2, 3, 3.5, 3.5, 3.5. The Pride Hill street scores were; 5, 4.5, 3, 3, 5, 2, 4, 3, 4, 4. The High street scores were; 4, 2, 3, 2, 4, 2, 3, 2, 4, 5. This gave an average of 4 for Accessibility, 3.5 for Position of main shops, 3 for Cleanliness of town, 3 for Variety of leisure facilities, 4.5 for Historic buildings, 2 for Positioning of car parks, 3.5 for Appearance of shopping area, 3 for Variety of shops, 4 for Quality of open space and 4 for Amount of open space.

In Telford we took two audits, one outside Debenhams in Sherwood Square and one in one in Dean Square. The scores for outside Debenhams in Sherwood Square were; 3, 5, 5, 5, 1, 4, 5, 4, 3, 3. The scores for Dean Square were; 3, 5, 5, 5, 1, 3.5, 4.5, 4.5, 2.5, 2.5. This gave an average of 3 for Accessibility, 5 for Position of main shops, 5 for Cleanliness of town, 5 for Variety of leisure facilities, 1 for Historic buildings, 3.5 for Positioning of car parks, 4.5 for Appearance of shopping area, 4.5 for Variety of shops, 2.5 for Quality of open space and 2.5 for Amount of open space. Overall Accessibility is better in Shrewsbury. Position of main shops, Cleanliness of town and Variety of leisure facilities are better in Telford. Historic building is better Shrewsbury. The positioning of car parks, Appearance of shopping area and Variety of shops are better in Telford and Quality of open space and amount of open space are better in Shrewsbury.

Because most of the factors are better in Telford, this proves that Telford has better leisure facilities than Shrewsbury.

Another thing that I did to help me answer my first hypothesis was to research Shrewsbury’s and Telford’s leisure facilities on yell.com and the yellow pages.

In conclusion I think that Telford has best leisure facilities because it is a new town. These results are shown in my yell.com/the yellow pages results on pages….. In my questionnaire on pages…. most people said that they would prefer to go to Telford for its leisure facilities. My audit on pages….. show that Telford has the best results for leisure facilities.

To answer my second hypothesis “People will travel further to Shrewsbury than Telford because it has a better range of shopping facilities.” I have a landuse map of the three areas in Shrewsbury and for Telford I have used the landuse map provided in Telford’s shopping centre.

These landuse maps show what types of shops there are e.g. food shops, clothing and footwear banks and services such as hairdressers and travel agents. The landuse maps also show where each type of shop is.

In Mardol there are about four or five charity shops. These are low order shops; the rent is cheap which is good for this type of shop. Not many people would visit this street because there aren’t many high order or brand name/chain shops. There is however a lot of food shops e.g. Holland and Barrat these shops also won’t attract that many people.

In Pride Hill Street there are lots of high order shops and brand name/chain shops such as Game, Boots, lots of mobile phone shops for example The Carphone Warehouse. There are also a lot of electrical goods shops and banks. This is agglomeration of economies. All of these will attract a lot of people.

In High Street again there are lots of banks and building societies (Agglomeration of economies). There are also a lot of high order shops such as book shops and jewellers. There are a lot of brand name/chain shops. However there are a lot of restaurants and cafes, these will attract people especially around lunch and tea time.

In Telford shopping centre the shops are mainly brand name/chain shops. These will attract the most people. There are also high order shops and cafes/restaurants. Most of the banks/building societies are located near the entrances and are mainly clumped together or near each other this again is agglomeration of economies. There are a few department shops such as Marks and Spencers, Beatties and BHS.

A lot of the shops are large such as Zara, Debenhams, H+M, JJB, Beatties and Marks and Spencers. These will attract a lot of people because of their size. Also in most cases these shops are bigger than those in Shrewsbury, which again will have a bigger appeal to people.

There are seven car parks surrounding Telford shopping centre, four of these are long stay car parks and three of these are short stay car parks. As well as this there is a bus and a train station close by. This makes Telford shopping centre very accessible. In Shrewsbury the bus and train station are close to the shopping centre and there are a couple of car parks next to the shopping centres but unless you go on the park and ride Shrewsbury isn’t as accessible as Telford.

So therefore Telford has a better sphere of influence. I also created a questionnaire. The questions that I used to help me answer this hypothesis are:

Question 2 “How far did you travel to get here” will show me that if for example if people live far away from Shrewsbury but still travel there for it’s leisure or shopping facilities. No-one travelled between 6-10 or 16-20 miles to get to Shrewsbury. Two people travelled 21 or more miles, four people travelled between 0 and 5 miles and 5 people travelled between 11 and 15to get to Shrewsbury. In Telford no-one travelled between 6-10 or 16-20 miles to get to Telford. Four people travelled between 0 and 5 miles, six people travelled between 11 and 15 and 1 person travelled 21 or more miles. This question will show me how far people will travel to get to Shrewsbury or Telford. As for example people may live far away from Shrewsbury or Telford but still travel there because of its leisure or shopping facilities.

Question 4 “Which town out of Shrewsbury and Telford do you think has the better leisure facilities?” In Shrewsbury five out of eleven people said that they thought Shrewsbury had the better leisure facilities and six people said that they thought Telford had the better leisure facilities. In Telford three people out of eleven people said that they thought that Shrewsbury had the better leisure facilities, seven out of eleven people said that they thought that Telford had the better leisure facilities and 1 person thought that both towns had an equal amount of leisure facilities.

Question 5 “Would you prefer to go to Shrewsbury or Telford for its leisure facilities?” In Shrewsbury five out of eleven people said that they would prefer to go to Shrewsbury for its leisure facilities and 6 out of eleven people said that they would prefer to go to Telford for its leisure facilities. In Telford three out of eleven people said that they would prefer to go to Shrewsbury for it’s leisure facilities, seven out of eleven people said that they would prefer to go to Telford for it’s leisure facilities and one person said that they wouldn’t mind which town they went to as they thought that both towns had equal leisure facilities.

Question 9 “Which town is the most developed?” In Shrewsbury three out of eleven people thought that Shrewsbury was the most developed town and the other nine people thought that Telford was the most developed. In Telford 1 person thought that Shrewsbury was the most developed and ten out of eleven people thought that Telford was the most developed.

I will create a pedestrian count to compare the amount of people visiting Shrewsbury and Telford. In Shrewsbury we conducted three pedestrian counts, one in the Pride Hill shopping centre at 10:17 am at this spot we had a total of 140 people pass by in ten minutes, we conducted another in Pride Hill street at 10:45 am here we had a total of 432 people pass by in ten minutes and the last one was in High street at 11 am, here we had a total of 174 people pass by in ten minutes. This shows that the Pride Hill Street was the busiest, followed by High street and then the Pride Hill shopping centre. I would expect to find this as the Pride Hill Street has the most high order and brand name/chain shops out of the three areas, therefore attracting more people. Also this is the street that joins the two shopping centres so it may just be that people were walking up/down the Pride Hill Street to get to the shopping centres or other streets. There is also the factor of time. For example there may be more people around at lunch time compared to 8-9 am in the morning.

In Telford we conducted two pedestrian counts, one outside Debenhams in Sherwood Square at 12:25 pm in this area we had a total of 338 people pass by in ten minutes. The other pedestrian count was in Dean Square at 1:15 pm here we had a total of 492 people pass by in ten minutes. I would expect to find that more people pass by in Telford because Telford has a bigger sphere of influence and a bigger variety of shops compared to Shrewsbury. However all of these pedestrian counts were conducted at a different time so as before more people may visit the shopping centre at lunch time compared to an earlier time of 8-9 am.

In conclusion I think that more people will travel further to get to Telford than Shrewsbury because it has a better range of shopping facilities and Telford has a bigger sphere of influence. This is shown in my questionnaire (on pages ….) questions 1, 2 4, 5 and 6 help me to answer this hypothesis. My landuse map on pages …… show that Telford has more shops and they are generally bigger than those in Shrewsbury. My pedestrian count on pages ….. show that more people visited Telford when compared to Shrewsbury.

To answer my third hypothesis “Telford offers a better service provision than Shrewsbury because it is a purpose built new town.” I have created a landuse map and few normal maps (these are on pages….) to help me compare both towns’ leisure facilities. Using these I can locate the leisure facilities. I have created an audit to rate the service provision and leisure facilities. In Shrewsbury Accessibility scored 3 in the Pride Hill shopping centre, 5 in the Pride Hill Street and 4 in the High Street, an average of 4. For Cleanliness of town the Pride Hill shopping centre, the Pride Hill Street and the High Street all scored 3 so therefore an average of 3. For positioning of car parks the Pride Hill shopping centre, the Pride Hill Street and the High Street all scored 2 so therefore an average of 2.

In Telford for Accessibility both Dean Square and Sherwood Square scored 3 and so an average of 3. For Cleanliness of town both Dean Square and Sherwood Square scored a 5 and so an average of 5. For positioning of car parks Dean Square scored 3 and Sherwood Square scored 4 giving an average of 3.5. Overall for these factors Shrewsbury scored the highest for Accessibility and Telford scored the highest for Cleanliness of town, and positioning of car parks.

I have produced a questionnaire and surveyed eleven people. The questions that have helped me to answer this hypothesis are:

Question 3 “What is your purpose of being here today?” in Shrewsbury no-one travelled for business, leisure or historical architecture. One person said that they were just visiting; two people travelled to Shrewsbury for other and eight people went to Shrewsbury for its leisure facilities. In Telford no-one travelled for business or other. Two people business and for leisure, three people travelled for Telford’s shopping facilities and four people said that they were just visiting.

Question 4 “Which town out of Shrewsbury and Telford do you think has the better leisure facilities?” In Shrewsbury five out of eleven people said that they thought Shrewsbury had the better leisure facilities and six people said that they thought Telford had the better leisure facilities. In Telford three people out of eleven people said that they thought that Shrewsbury had the better leisure facilities, seven out of eleven people said that they thought that Telford had the better leisure facilities and 1 person thought that both towns had an equal amount of leisure facilities.

Question 5 “Would you prefer to go to Shrewsbury or Telford for its leisure facilities?” In Shrewsbury five out of eleven people said that they would prefer to go to Shrewsbury for its leisure facilities and 6 out of eleven people said that they would prefer to go to Telford for its leisure facilities. In Telford three out of eleven people said that they would prefer to go to Shrewsbury for it’s leisure facilities, seven out of eleven people said that they would prefer to go to Telford for it’s leisure facilities and one person said that they wouldn’t mind which town they went to as they thought that both towns had equal leisure facilities.

Question 9 “Which town is the most developed?” In Shrewsbury three out of eleven people thought that Shrewsbury was the most developed town and the other nine people thought that Telford was the most developed. In Telford 1 person thought that Shrewsbury was the most developed and ten out of eleven people thought that Telford was the most developed.

Question 10 “Which town do you think is the cleanest?” In Shrewsbury seven out of eleven people thought that Shrewsbury was the cleanest, three out of eleven people thought that Telford was the cleanest and one person thought that both towns were equal in cleanliness. In Telford six out of eleven people thought that Shrewsbury was the cleanest, four out of eleven people thought that Telford was the cleanest and one person thought that both towns were equal in cleanliness.

After researching Shrewsbury and Telford leisure facilities and service provision I have found that Telford has the most leisure facilities and service provision. This is because Telford is a purpose built town; it was designed with the car in mind for easy access and with leisure facilities. Because it has good access and parking more people would travel to Telford rather than Shrewsbury. To get to Telford you go straight up the M54 or A442, both of these roads are quick and easy to use and then upon arrival there are plenty of car parks to park in leaving no hassle. Whereas to get Shrewsbury you would have to use either the A5, the A49 or the A458. These roads are slower and therefore it would take longer to get to Shrewsbury. Upon arrival there is then the issue of parking. You have to drive around lots of little streets before you get to a car park. This of course causes more hassle.

Telford’s train station is very close to the centre of Telford and the shopping centre itself, taking only about a five minute walk from the train station till you arrive inside the shopping centre.

Shrewsbury’s train station is close to the centre of Shrewsbury. However it takes a lot longer to walk to the Pride Hill and Darwin shopping centres or the other shopping streets. Taking about a 10 minute walk.

Telford’s bus station links onto its shopping centre so again is very quick and easy to use when you want to go to Telford’s shopping centre.

Shrewsbury’s bus station doesn’t link onto any of its shopping centres. Although it isn’t much of a walk it would still be easier to go to Telford and use their bus service.

However Shrewsbury does have park and rides. These services do drop you off outside the shopping centres or shopping streets. This service is easy to use both on your way out and your journey back.

In conclusion I think that Telford offers a better service provision compared to Shrewsbury because it is a purpose built new town. Telford has a lager catchment population so it can support more shops and leisure facilities. Having more shops and leisure facilities attracts more people, making the catchment population bigger. This then allows more shops and leisure facilities to open once again attracting more people.

Telford has easy and good access and lots of car parks. This is shown on my maps that are on pages …….in my audit that is on pages ……. In my questionnaire questions 3, 4, 5, 9, and 10 all show that Telford comes out on top. Apart from question 5 on my Shrewsbury questionnaire, however if you look at question six you can see that these answers correlate. So it is a question of which town is nearer for those people to get to. My yellow pages/yell.com results also show that Telford offers more leisure facilities.