GCSE Geography Fieldwork

Tring School

May-September, 1995

Comparing usage patterns of the two Tesco superstores on the East and West sides of Aylesbury.

For my GCSE Geography fieldwork I am investigating usage patterns of the two Tesco superstores in Aylesbury.

Aylesbury is the administrative centre of its district, and is also the county town of Buckinghamshire. It is home to some 50,000 inhabitants and under the jurisdiction of the local authority almost 131,000 people. This population is, on the whole, served by Aylesbury, but Leighton Buzzard to the north east of the town, and Milton Keynes also provide good services for the community. The situation of Aylesbury is shown on the simple map over leaf.

Aylesbury provides at least four major food superstores which include Safeway, Co-op, the two Tescos and Marks and Spencers. There is a wide choice for the shopper and much competition between each chain.

My project, however, is concentrated solely on the Tesco stores either side of the town. I aim to prove my two hypotheses true, or false, and draw detailed conclusions from my results.

Through out my project I will refer to the East Tesco as the ‘New’ store, built in 1993, and the West Tesco as the ‘Old’ store, built in 1985 and improved in 1989. This is shown by the following map that shows the situation of either store.

1. Investigate the hypotheses
1. Use geographical techniques to explain my conclusions and evaluations.
1. Write a detailed and well presented project comparing usage patterns of the two Tesco superstores in Aylesbury.

I chose these statements as I find it interesting that Tesco have seen it profitable to build another Tesco superstore, equally as large as the old store, on the opposite side of the town and in an area where other shops are some walk away. I accept that the old store is further out of town but as my land use map shows there is a retail estate on Broadfields where the store is located.

Questionnaires-A copy of my questionnaire can be found overleaf. The 40 questionnaires I will ask at each store will be my base information from which almost all of my primary data will come from. I will analyse the data my questionnaire provides and present it in various maps, charts, graphs, and explanations in the aim of proving, either way, my hypotheses.

Land Use Mapping-I will conduct a land use survey of the immediate area around either store by obtaining a 12500:1 scale map from the Aylesbury reference library and using this I will walk around the area and make a detailed survey of land use types. This helps me prove my second hypothesis by showing exactly what other shops, if any are in the vicinity of either store. This can be used in co-operation with my questionnaire to show that people are, or are not, influenced by other shops nearby.

Listing-I will list the services provided ‘in store’ and also laid on by Tesco in order to prove without any doubt hypothesis 2. This works with the land use mapping to show exactly what is available for the customers.

Nick Manning, Tring School

Tring

Wendover

Berkhamsted

Princes Risborough

Leighton Buzzard

Thame

Winslow

Haddenham

This question is aimed at answering hypothesis 1. I am able to find out where people come from to shop at one of the Tesco stores. The age and sex of the person I will note at the head of the page when I have conducted the questionnaire.

The question also enables me to find spheres of influence and thresholds of both stores.

Bicycle

Walked

Public Transport

Free bus

Other(Specify)...................................................

This question will help me prove hypotheses 1 and 2. It will indicate the accessibility of either store and how people prefer to get to the store to shop. It is aimed at finding out if people use the free bus to get to the store. I think that this will influence people without a car, or any means of private transport, to come to Tesco. Roadworks, traffic lights, etc. may put off people with a car from going to one or the other store.

Other shops and facilities nearby (which)

Free Bus

Quality/Price

Range of products/More Products

Other...................................................................

This will help me answer hypotheses 1 and 2. It will give me an indication of why people shop at Tesco. The answer to this question may have to be combined with question one to prove hypothesis 1.

Once a week

Twice a week

Every Fortnight

Once a Month

Infrequently

The answer to this question may be influenced by when people can get to the store or when people want/need to use the other shops and facilities nearby/indoors. In this respect it will help me prove hypothesis 2 but it may also help me in proving hypothesis 1.

This question will help me find out whether people do ‘one big shop’ each week or disperse their shopping over one week. I will use this question in association with the previous question. It may help me prove hypothesis 2.

No

This question will help me establish whether people shopping at one store are aware of the other Tesco in Aylesbury. In association with the following question I can find out why people prefer one to the other. This is very similar to question three but it will display a different angle to proving my two hypotheses.

7. If yes, why do you shop here rather than at the other? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Secondary data - maps-I will attempt to obtain detailed maps and planning documents from Aylesbury Vale District Council and Aylesbury reference library. These will help me to draw accurate sketch maps for my land use mapping and will also be useful in showing patterns in where people come from to shop at the stores.

Overleaf I have included a simple desire line map showing where I predict people will come from to shop at the two stores.

I will now put the results from my 40 questionnaires into a chart, from which I will be able to draw conclusions, find patterns, and expand further my results in order to answer my Hypotheses.

1. Where do you live?

2. How did you travel here?

3. Why do you shop here?

4. How often do you shop here?

5. Do you do all of your shopping here, or do you use shops closer to home for daily needs?

6. Do you know there is another Tesco superstore in Aylesbury?

7. If yes, why do you prefer to shop here rather than the other store?

2. How did you travel here?

3. Why do you shop here?

4. How often do you shop here?

5. Do you do all of your shopping here, or do you use shops closer to home for daily needs?

6. Do you know there is another Tesco superstore in Aylesbury?

7. If yes, why do you prefer to shop here rather than the other store?

I will now begin to represent my results in more varied ways, try and explain, interpret, and compare what they show and compare them to my two hypotheses in the aim of proving one way or the other the statements I have made.

I will firstly look at where people come from to shop at either of the stores. Previously I included a copy of a Desire Line Map showing where I predicted where people would come from to shop at the stores. Below is a copy of an Aylesbury street map that shows where people inside Aylesbury come from to shop at the old (red) Tesco and the New (Green) Tesco.

This map indicates that people living within Aylesbury generally prefer to shop at the closest and most accessible store for them. People in the East mainly went to then New store and people from the West, mainly shop at the Old store. There is, of course, exceptions but what is surprising is that people from the Southcourt area in the South of Aylesbury mainly shop at the Old store. This is surprising because to travel to the Old store you must tackle a particularly busy stretch of road to get there whereas to get to the new store you need only drive through Stoke Mandeville if you have a private vehicle. If, however, people who rely on public transport to reach either store may be influenced by where the transport goes and how close it goes to the stores. This point I can investigate further using my data on how people travel to the stores.

The Desire Line map I drew previously showing where I predicted people would come from to shop at the two Tesco stores can now be contrasted to my results. I have included two other desire line maps showing where people actually come from to shop at the New and Old stores.

These results are interesting. They show that the New store only really attracts customers living to the East of Aylesbury whereas the Old store served a wider range of people living to the West and East of Aylesbury. This may be because the west store offers more facilities and for people in the West to travel to the East would be a waste of time. Of course people have preferences, however only two people at the New store said they preferred it to the Old store (question 7) compared to seven people at the Old store. The fact that the New store is new may mean it is relatively "untested" by the public and this may mean people go to the old store through habit. People in the east visit the New store possibly because travelling there is easier than traversing round Aylesbury.

The graph above, and overleaf, ties in with what I was previously saying. The Old store attracts half of is customers from outside Aylesbury whereas the New store only attracts eight out of forty people (on one particular day). This may indicate that due to the situation of the New store, which is built near many housing estates, is used more by people who live both nearby to the store as well as in Aylesbury. The Old store is built on a retail/industrial estate and is less easily accessible, to pedestrians especially, from housing estates which are cut off by Bicester Road.

The situation of the stores is shown more precisely on the urban land use maps that follow the chart overleaf. We can see now that the Old store does not have any housing in the immediate vicinity whereas the New store does have housing in the near vicinity and this is likely to encourage more people living nearby to shop there and therefore decreasing the ratio of people living in Aylesbury to those living outside Aylesbury in my survey.

We can also see that there is substantially more shops and restaurants in the vicinity of the Old store. This may encourage people to shop at the old store where they have a choice of places to eat and do other shopping.

I have said that people are influenced by shops and facilities in the vicinity of either store and the two column graphs shown over the page depict why people shop at one store.

The graph for the New Tesco shows clearly that people mainly went to the store due to the closeness to their home or work and only one person stated they went to the store particularly to use the facilities or shops the store has inside or nearby. The Old store however, has fewer people shopping there due to it’s proximity and more said they used the store for the shops and facilities nearby. At the New store the Cafe was the one thing that was mentioned that drew people to the store, whereas at the Old store McDonalds, Texas, the cafe, Currys and the Car wash were specifically mentioned. This suggests to me that people do use the old store for the shops and facilities nearby as well as for its range and quality (both of which were double that of the New store) and this is reflected by the Desire line maps from earlier. I could now say that the Old store has a larger Threshold than the new store due to the shops and facilities indoors and nearby. It is also shown here that more people use the new store due to it’s closeness to home or their work. The New store’s results are less varied, in that the results showed that the store was mainly only used for it’s proximity to home or work whereas the old store had a wider spread of results as I have just said previously.

Also included in these results are whether the free bus service provided by Tescos affects whether people shop at one or the other store. The details of the service are included on a separate sheet and from this I can see that all buses travel to the old store and only 5 buses travel to the new store. This will directly affect which store people shop at because the limited amount of buses to the new store means that only limited amounts of people can travel there free who do not have any private transport. Also there is only buses to the new store from the east, although it is not clear on the topological map on the leaflet, and therefore the new store does not receive an equal, or evenly spread, sample of people.

The small number of buses to the new store is also reflected in my results on how people travel to the stores. When we look at the two pie charts (over the page) we can see that 9 people used the free bus at the old store and none at the new store. However I feel that these results may be unfair as I visited the new store on a day when there is only one free bus in the morning and I visited in the afternoon so therefore making my results unfair. Also a surprising amount of people travelled by car to the new store and few walked. This surprises me as, as I said earlier, the new store is nearer to housing and I would expect more people to walk and no as many to use their car. Public transport was not surprising. There are more bus stops in the vicinity of the new store and few in the vicinity of the old one. This was visible in my results.

I want to look now at how often people shop at both stores because this will be affected by how they travel there and linked with what the store offers. We can see that the Histograph that follows shows a similar pattern for both stores. I mean that whilst they do not have exactly the same numbers they follow a fairly similar ‘shape’. Both stores have the majority of people shopping once a week. This may be because they use the free bus which only travels once a week from each particular town/village or because they have to walk and do not want the effort of carrying bags home every day. Interestingly, more people shop every day at the new store than at the old store. It is interesting because more people walk to the old store and this you would assume means that people would shop more frequently. I can explain why more people shop once a week at the old store by looking again at the desire line map I drew before for the old store. We can see that people come from further afar than at the new store and due to this people are less likely to want to shop more frequently due to travel problems, etc.

If we look back now at the tables I produced at the beginning of my results I want to look at question 7. Of all the answers given to me, the most common answer at all stores was closeness to home or work. This can be related back to many areas and is helpful in proving my first hypothesis. The other answers in this questions are just repetitions of other questions.

Finally I want to raise the issue of out of town shopping stores, a subject I wish to raise in my Values, Attitudes and judgements section. This is the subject of out of town shopping centres. This will mainly concern questions five and six of my questionnaire. For the graphs for question five we can see that people mainly do all of their shopping at both stores. However 25% of people at the new store did not do all of their shopping at the store, but this is less to do with comparison and more to do with the day I went and the people I asked the questionnaire to.

The graphs for question six we can see that almost every person I asked was aware of the other Tesco store in Aylesbury. The only person who was not aware of the other store was a person visiting the area from Bournmouth and possibly had I asked someone from this area they would have been aware of the store.

In this section I aim to prove, and explain, my hypotheses using the data I have collected in the results section of my fieldwork study and also attempt to present an understanding and application of geographical issues raised by my project.

I will begin by re-writing my hypotheses and then prove them.

The East (Tring Road) Tesco attracts more shoppers from settlements towards the East of Aylesbury, and similarly the West (Bicester Road) Tesco attracts more shoppers from the western side of Aylesbury.

To prove this hypothesis we must look at pages 9 and 10 in the results section. We can see, as I have explained, that the results show that my hypothesis is correct for the new store, but not so for the old store. This is probably an unfair result as I visited the old store on a day when there are many free buses that depart from towns and villages to the East of Aylesbury and I visited the new store on a day when there are few free buses. However there are decidedly fewer buses that go to the new store anyway and had I gone on a different day and at a different time my results, obviously, would be different. This raises the issue that always a larger sample gives you a more reliable set of data and to make sure that my results were completely fair I should have visited both stores every day of the week at the same time each day. Whilst I have not done this I do not have the complete spectrum of where people come from to shop at the stores, nor why, when and how often. However, I can say that whatever results I gleaned from my visits, they were likely to be governed by how people got to the store. At the time of my samples Bicester road was undergoing much redevelopment and as a result the stretch of road was constantly congested. As a result, people who have private transport may be deterred from using the old store and therefore use the new store for the duration of the obstruction and this may again make the results bias.

To sum up I have proved that my first hypothesis is not completely true and can only be applied for the new store.

Due to the location of other retail outlets and services in-store, customers prefer to use the west Tesco.

In order to prove this hypothesis we must look at many things. Firstly my desire line maps indicate that the west Tesco does have a larger threshold and therefore we may assume that this is not only to do with habit and preference. This assumption can be backed up by looking at the column graphs that follow page 11. I admit that the amount of people who visited the store because of other shops and facilities nearby was very small, only 7. However, at the new store only one person said that was why they visited the store and so by just looking at these results I might say my hypothesis has been proven correct. Before I can categorically state that this is right I must look at my land use maps. These show not only the amount of shops but also the nature of those places. We can see that, as I have previously said, there are more shops near the old store and, excluding the garage and Kwik-Fit, none near the new store. However the shops near the old store are all mainly low-order-goods and people do not want to use the shops as often as they would Tescos. Therefore it would not be valid to say that Tesco shopping and shopping for high-order-goods at Currys, MFI, Texas, etc. can be linked. It is not irrelevant that two people in my sample did use those shops but possibly only on that day and it was co-incidence that they were included in the sample. McDonalds is likely to draw people to shop there, but I find it is unlikely that the Mexican restaurant Chequito draws people to the store as it is a special type of food and mainly open during the evening, not for fast food. In these respects I would have to say that, to say now, and on my evidence, that my hypothesis has been proven correct, however this raises the issue that if I had a larger sample my results would have been more valid.

As I have just said, I feel I should have taken a more widespread sample to ensure my results were completely valid and fair. Aside from that issue I feel that my questionnaires were, on the whole, very helpful in proving my hypotheses. However, having said my questionnaires were on the whole good, I feel that question seven was too vague. Due to the fact that I had not given specified answers for this question it led to several varied answers, this meant collating them was hard and, had I the chance of re-doing the project I would ensure that I gave specific answers for this question.

Had I had the time I would have liked to have carried out another sample at a store nearer the town centre of Aylesbury such as Safeway or Sainsburys. This would mean that not only would I be comparing the two Tescos but one Tesco store with an other supermarket chain other than Tescos.

During my research, I visited the planning department of the Aylesbury council. However they were unable to assist me in my research, nor did they have any relevant information to help me in this project.

I also rang the GOAD department of the Ordnance Survey to try to obtain GOAD plans for the areas around the two stores. However the department only had maps for Aylesbury town centre and so I had to find 12500:1 scale maps at the Aylesbury Vale District reference library.

Finally, I would have liked to contact Tesco’s planning and research department to find their views on land use, thresholds and other issues. Unfortunately I was unable to obtain any contact number for this department.

As I stated earlier, I undertook this topic because I was interested to find out why Tescos found it profitable to build another superstore in Aylesbury when there is already an equally large, if not larger, store in the town. In this final section of my field work I wish to discuss the broader issue that my statement touches on, which is the issue of out of town shopping centres. This is particularly relevant to me as during the time of this project a heated debate still goes on about proposals for an out of town shopping centre in Tring and Ross-on-Wye, in Herefordshire where we are regular visitors.

The results I put forward earlier for this section, however, show a more specific area of shopping and that is of the effect large stores have on shoppers. We can see from the graphs for how much shopping people do at each store, that very few people use shops closer to home for daily needs. This is possibly because milk, butter and eggs and often be delivered to the doorstep by the milkman, or it could be because the out of town stores provide for almost everything one would need on a week to week, day to day basis. I feel that the rise of out of town shopping centres and supermarkets has essential over-run the traditional grocery store that sells everything. These shops have become unfavourable because of the limited range and often high prices. With larger chain stores prices are often considerably cheaper and therefore more people will shop there. I am not saying that Butchers and Bakers will be run out of town, they will not, but I do think the consumer gets a better deal from a large chain store. Out of town stores are becoming more common due to lack of land inside town centres.

As displayed in my results people are also very aware of new stores opening, this is through good marketing and advertising and mostly the stores are magnet stores and by name alone create interest.

Below and overleaf are two newspaper articles. The first is from the Herald Express (formerly Herald and Post) in September 1995. It concerns the proposals for a Tring branch of superstore, as I mentioned earlier.

This piece interests me as, as I am an inhabitant of Tring and almost certain to use the proposed store if it is built, I agree with the statements made by the other people in favour of the store. Councillor David Metcalfe is not being sensible in saying that the store will encroach upon the green belt as the proposals state that it would be built on a site currently vacated by a disused factory. To build on the cattle market is, in my eyes not a good proposal as it would mean far more congestion in Tring and make the junction at the bottom of the high street even more dangerous than at present.

The second article is from the Ross Gazette. This again concerns proposals for an out of town shopping centre.

This is similar to the Tring proposal and raises the same arguments. However there is already one large Safeway superstore in Ross and I don’t feel that another is needed. Ross is only slightly larger than Tring and to setup another superstore, that would be situated just off the M50 would be ludicrous. Money would be better spent trying to improve the town centre and attract more firms into the many unused buildings which give the town a shabby look. I agree with Mr. Henry Kaye that the town centre should be pedestrianised as it would not affect the flow of traffic through Ross due to the bypass.

To sum up the rise of out of town shopping centres is good if it suits the situation of the town it is planned for. I can see now why Tesco saw fit to build another store in Aylesbury mainly, I feel because it is closer to the town centre and also housing, this means, as I proved in my results, that people living in Aylesbury, and are shopping in the town centre can also quite easily do their food shopping at the same time. Also the Safeway store built near the town centre meant that Tesco’s competition had the advantage of being nearer to the town centre. As one of the staff at the reference library told me "there are three rules when considering building a shop somewhere and they are: Location, Location and Location".

Maps-Aylesbury Vale reference library.

Articles-Ross Gazette

This project was typed using Microsoft® Word 6.0a and the graph I produced was done using Microsoft® Excel 5.0 and all covers using Microsoft® Powerpoint 4.0.