My Local Urban Area
I moved to Ayr last year for university and am now living in one of the three blocks of flats that is Churchill Tower. At the bottom of one of the flats there is a small convenience store and in the middle of the courtyard out front is a small decorative statue which, I think, is reference to the harbour which is across the river from me. There is only one road that passes the front of the blocks which s a relatively quiet one and there is one behind the flats and over a small bridge which runs the shorefront. There isn’t a lot of green space in my direct area, but the beach is pretty much a stone throw away.
I, personally, either use my bicycle or walk for modes of transport, but there is an underground parking facility and parking bays to the sides of the flat. Thankfully there are cycle lanes on the roads and even up to and on the main road at the end of the street which makes cycling less dangerous and a lot easier. There are bus services which mainly connects the smaller surrounding villages to Ayr but there is a double-decker bus which runs to Glasgow and Edinburgh. As well as this, there’s a train station in town which can get pretty busy at peak times with people coming to go to the college and university on top of people commuting to Glasgow for work. The roads as well can get rather congested at peak times also. In town there are parking metres to try and reduce the number of cars in town and there is a one way system as well to accommodate for the narrow roads.
Community spaces wise, there are a number of private gyms as well as the council leisure centre. There’s a big library in town and numerous churches all over Ayr. To my knowledge I haven’t seen any allotments but they may be some outwith the town centre. There are also a couple parks on the riverside for children and more in the outer districts. Next to the beach there is a large square with a lot of green space and benches for people to walk through and sit at. The beach front has a large play park and activities for young children and adolescents. As well as an Odeon cinema, there is a theatre which is linked to the university for the performance and theatre technology students. Although not in Ayr itself there is an all-weather pitch in Prestwick that people can go to to play football and other sports.
Since I’m relatively new to Ayr I’m not entirely sure about the industry and work places, but there is a large shopping centre and plenty of pubs and clubs to provide employment. There’s also a lot of work when the races come around in the racecourse itself, hotels, restaurants and surrounding pubs.
In the peri-urban spaces surrounding Ayr there are a number of supermarkets and hotels, especially next to the racecourse that connect the houses and flats to the town. Industrial estates have been swallowed up by the surrounding housing estates as they have grown and become part of the town.
In South Ayrshire there are 92 people per square kilometre which is quite high in comparison to Scotland as a whole which has 68 people per person per square kilometre. This is because it is one of the bigger towns in Scotland and is a popular place to live by commuters to Glasgow. (http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc134_c/index.html)
Ayr has the lowest ranking for air pollution, this is probably due to it not being a major industrial town that isn’t overly congested or busy. (http://www.scottishairquality.co.uk/latest/site-info.php?site_id=AYR&view=photos&photo=west)
