The Urban Environment.
My local urban environment, is a town in South Ayrshire called Ayr. Ayr is a very large town which consists of many housing areas retail and industrials estates, supermarkets, a university and a college. Ayr beach is also where the Port of Ayr is situated. Ayr is also a popular area for tourist due to the beach, sea front and the racecourse. This year in particular Ayr hosted the Air show which featured many displays from planes and jets over the sea.
– Ayr Beach.
In the 19th century when a large amount of Scotland was being transformed by the industrial revolution Ayr didn’t become a manufacturing town but prospered fairly quietly. Despite not being heavily industrialised the population in Ayr grew rapidly. By 1851 the population of Ayr was 21,000. By the end of the 19th century it was 31,000. As currently as 2012 the population of Ayr was 47,190. Ayr is part of South Ayrshire and a survey showing how densely populates areas in the UK are shows that South Ayrshire as a whole is not too heavily densely populated with 92 people per each KM. This is less than East Ayrshire which has 97 people per KM and also less than North Ayrshire which has 155 people per KM (www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk).
In 2016, Ayr is more heavily populated meaning that a large amount of Ayr’s land has became housing estates to house the population growth and also the student population due to the University of The West of Scotland. The bank of the river has been very heavily built upon with council housing, the University and also the University halls. Currently the new Ayr academy is also being built behind the university which a large amount of green space and trees had to be demolished to build. Despite a lot of green space having to be occupied for housing states Ayr still does have some green spaces such as Rozelle Park and Belleisle Park. Due to the large number of housing states, the university, the college and attractions such as the beach and racecourse much of Ayr is made up of roads to ensure access to these places. There is also a road which runs directly along the seafront. These roads are always very busy during the day. Many of the roads in the outskirts of Ayr run directly alongside or through country side such as Whittlets roundabout.
ROZZELLE PARK
WHITTLETS ROUNDABOUT
As previously mentioned Ayr has many roads throughout it which lead to attractions, shops, the university and housing so it is evident that there will be many cars in Ayr at any given time. There is also Ayr bus station meaning that at any given time there is also many large buses coming in and out of the town. There is obvious problems caused by this such as traffic and most importantly pollution. It is arguable that the buses may reduce pollution as people may take a bus rather than drive, but with the sheer number of buses and cars on the road there is sure to be a fair bit of pollution. Ayr also has a very good train link with there being many journeys to Glasgow and a few to Edinburgh. Most trains stop at many of the local villages down the line which is very helpful and encourages people not to drive to Ayr and contribute to traffic levels. The air quality in Ayr is actually pretty good as the meter on the South Ayrshire council websites shows that there is a very low level of pollution of Ayr high street. (http://www.south-ayrshire.gov.uk/environmentalhealth/publichealth/airqualitylive.aspx)
It is important to note that Ayr high street has a relatively low number of cars driving through it compared to the roads so pollution in these areas will obviously be higher than on the high street.
In South Ayrshire there are 41 primary schools many have a nursery class attached too it. This is a huge number but is necessary to deal with the number of children in this area which will continue to increase. There are 8 secondary schools in South Ayrshire. One of which- Ayr Academy, is currently in the process of being rebuilt. There is also Ayr College and the University of the West of Scotland. The new UWS building was opened in August 2011 and cost £81 million to build. The new campus was to be one of the UK’s most modern and enviromentally friendly campuses. It aimed to be the most sustainable Higher Education learning environment. In Ayr there is also the new shopping centre Ayr Central. Ayr Central is covered shopping centre in Ayr, Scotland. Built on a former brown field site on Kyle Street, which had been abandoned for fifteen years, the development cost £75 million. This was particularly good for Ayr as it brought in more jobs and also more money to the area due to more people shopping here rather than going to Glasgow for example. This is also better from the environment as it reduces people driving to Glasgow or other places for shopping which contributes to air pollution. There is also the Citadel, which is a sport facility which contain a gym, swimming pool and any sports halls.
