Geography Coursework – Merry Hill

Course Work Aims The aim of my course proceeding is to investigate if three obtain sum of moneys in the west midlands can be placed into shop hierarchies. meditation My hypothesis is that* tremendous hill will nurture a bigger sphere of influence than Kidderminster and Dudley* Merry hill will have a better surroundings than Kidderminster and Dudley* Merry hill will have more(prenominal) than simile shops than Kidderminster and DudleyJustification of hypothesis I predict that the solutions will fit in the next hierarchy.First prodigy People will travel farther I predict that Merry agglomerate will be at the top of the hierarchy because it is more accessible (roads, bus r exposees, railway golf links and motorway), it contains better facilities (shops, restaurants, car parks), it will also have juicy order goods. As Merry hill contains all of the following, it will be at the top of the hierarchy.I predict that Dudley will be at the bottom of the hierarchy because it is less accessible than Merry knoll and Kidderminster, it has low quality facilities comp bed to Merry Hill and Kidderminster and it mainly supplies low order goods.To try on this I will collect car registrations and shopper surveys.Second farsightedness Environment Quality I predict that Merry Hill will have the highest quality of environment because it is undercover, at that place is no litter and it has good air conditioning, weather doesnt affect the shoppers, there are dozens of bins, greenery all around the car park, CCTV, guards and cleaners o clean up the subject area so everything is very hygienic.I predict that the environment with the lowest environmental quality will be Dudley because there isnt any cover as it is bydoors, litter everywhere, no air conditioning, and no bins, not a dance band of greenery, no CCTV and no guards.To prove this I will carry out an environmental survey.Third Prediction Tourists and Comparison Shops I predict that Merry Hill will have th e most tourists and comparison shops because the round number of shops means that there will be a wider range of shops to compare and also as most shops sell high order goods, they are well known and this will help entice tourists.I predict that Dudley will have few comparison and convenience stores because its a small obtain centre, which means that there will be fewer shops meaning you will have less shops to compare.To prove this I will carry out a shop survey, listing all the shops severally settlement consists of.Geographical InformationShopping habits have changed due to the new technology and, the higher prices of products having been introduced, meaning more and more people are likely to compare prices in different shops earlier buying anything, whereas forrader all prices were rather similar. More shops have also been introduced, which has also caused shopping habits to change.In the future shopping hierarchies whitethorn have totally changed. There is a possibility t hat the smaller shopping centres may behind start to increase moving higher in the hierarchy. Also larger shopping centres may soft deteriorate especially as there are so many shops all around that are closing down.The advantages of out of town shopping centres are* for the first time, the shopping centres have a lot of comparison shops, so shoppers can buy the cheapest product.* As there are more shops in one area shoppers have a larger variety of products to choose from, so there are bound to be a larger number of comparison shops.* Another advantage of having an out of town shopping centre is that people are likely to go there and it increases tourism.The disadvantages of out of town shopping centre* Firstly out of town shopping centres increase traffic jams as there is an increasing of traffic* come on of town shopping centres increase the level of noise pollution on the road* Next out of town shopping centres allow more congestion on the road* Lastly, out of town shopping ce ntres increase pollution on a whole and also contribute majorly to global warmingMethods of selective information collectionData was collected over a period of two days. On the first day, we visited Kidderminster (Old and New). On the second day we visited Merry Hill and Dudley. We executioned in a group of three or more because then we would be able to get other peoples opinions and so we can collect data faster, before time runs out.Primary DataWe recorded 50 car registrations for to each one area to work out how far people had travelled to come to these shopping centres. This data was collected in order to work out where the cars had been registered to give us some idea as to the sphere of influence of each settlement. At each location we completed 5 environmental surveys to access the quality of the environment. This was done by gain the environment on a number of indi9cators on a sliding scale from (o-5), with 0 be poor and 5 being excellent.The surveys were taken at roughl y equal spacing in each settlement and marked clearly on the map. The scores were our own personal feeling of the environment and may have been skewed by bad weather conditions and time of day i.e. rush hour. We listed all of the shops transcription if they were comparison or convenience shops. We collected this data because it gave us an idea of whether the shops were mainly sold high or low order goods and it helped show us the sphere of influence of the location.Secondary DataTo hold in my primary data I collected background information for each settlement from the internet, I looked at bus routes for each settlement which would show the accessibility of the areas, I looked at maps of each area o show the size of each area and I collected data on the history of each settlement.