Urban Environment

Physical Characteristics

My local environment is a village called Crossgates, which is situated between the towns Dunfermline and Cowdenbeath. It is not a well-known area and it’s only claim to fame is that it is the hometown of the guitarist Stuart Adamson from The Skids and Big Country. The village name means “crossroads” it is located at the point where the main Dunfermline to Kirkcaldy road crosses the old Great North Road from Inverkeithing to Perth (Stevenson, 2016).  Click here to view Crossgates on the map. There is only one main road which runs through the upper end of Crossgates (Mossgreen), going down Springhill Brae leading on to the Main Street of Crossgates, which you can view on the map.

  Main Street

 Springhill Brae

Here are a couple of photos which I have taken again to compare the difference of the environment over the years. As you can see from the photographs on the left, there is a lot more green space than those on the right, due to the amount of houses which have now been built. Whilst the buildings on the Main Street are still standing, they have been refurbished and some new building have been added (The British Legion) to the far left corner of the photograph.

Transport

The roads are also a lot quieter on the left due to there not being a huge amount of traffic on the roads, as you can see the only traffic is a tram which no longer operates, and a horse and cart. These main roads are now very busy every day and therefore need a lot of maintenance.  In the present day, the roads in Crossgates are used by mostly cars and vans, however there are some lorries which also use this main road. This road is now being used a lot less by lorries, due to villagers who were complaining that they were causing an inconvenience to the village. There was a lot of lorries using the Main Road because there is a quarry on the outskirts of Crossgates, between Mossgreen and Kirkcaldy which a company called Collier are based. This also happens to be the company my Dad works for. During busy times, Crossgates can become very congested, therefore there are traffic lights at the Cross of Crossgates to help the contraflow of traffic.

Community Spaces

There is one school in Crossgates, Crossgates Primary School, which is the school I attended. It is a spacious two storey building of the 1920’s era, originally a combined Primary and Secondary. In the 1960’s it became Crossgates Primary School and Nursery (Fife Council, 2016). There is also a community centre in Crossgates which is used for many different groups such as Brownies, Community Groups and Youth Clubs. Here is a photograph of it.

We also have a small library in Crossgates which is open on a Thursday and Monday.

Industry and Work.

Due to the size of village Crossgates is, there are no factories within the village. There are still a few farms on the outskirts of the village, one of which is a dairy farm. There are a few shops on the Main Street, some grocery shops and one ice cream shop. There are also a couple of take aways and a few pubs. The ice cream shop in Crossgates is a tourist attraction because it is very well known in the surrounding areas. It is called Divitos and I actually worked there for six years.

There are four hairdressers in Crossgates also which are usually very busy.

Recreation Spaces.

Unfortunately, due to Crossgates being a small village, there are no recreation spaces in the village itself, but there are sports centres and leisure centres in the surrounding towns of Cowdenbeath and Dunfermline which are only about ten minutes away and there are buses which operate every ten minutes to these towns.

Peri-Urban Space.

There is a growing population density in Crossgates and has been for as long as I can remember. Many of the fields are now housing establishments and this is an ongoing occurrence. I am surprised that Crossgates Primary School has managed to comfortably manage with this growing population, however I know another school will be built if the population becomes overwhelming. Pollution is another aspect of the environment which the people of Crossgates are becoming increasingly worried about, due to Mossmorran which is less than two miles away from the village. Mossmorran is an ethylene plant which often gives off smoke and emissions from its flame when it is burning ethane.

Population Density

The population density of Crossgates in 2014 was 2,640 residents (City Population, 2014), however I suspect this is higher now, due to the number of houses which have been since built. Click here to explore the population further.

Air Quality

The latest pollution recorded in Dunfermline (a surrounding area of Crossgates) was recorded at 12:00 today being on level 1 which is the lowest level of pollution, with the highest amount of pollution recorded being level 3 which is still low.

 

References

Stevenson, S. (2016) Old Photographs Crossgates Fife Scotland. [Online] Available: http://tour-scotland-photographs.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/old-photograph-crossgates-fife-scotland.html [Accessed: 22 September 2016].

Fife Council (2016) School. [Online] Available: https://www.fifedirect.org.uk/schoolsite/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.display&pageid=5F1C3883-F781-44DA-9053-7CCA9760AC67&siteID=8447B5C3-963C-78C7-3AA28EE6F556301A [Accessed: 22 September 2016].

City Population Crossgates (Fife).  [Online] Available: http://www.citypopulation.de/php/uk-scotland.php?cityid=S19000793 [Accessed: 22 September 2016].