Edexcel AS Geography Unit 2 Rebranding Places

Need to Rebrand:

• Docks closed in 1981 because as ships got bigger they needed deeper water. The next best site was Tilbury
• Between 1978 and 1983 over 12,000 jobs were lost
• In some parts of East London, over 60% of adult men were unemployed in 1981
• The docks were left derelict and investors thought it was too expensive to regenerate

Rebranding Schemes:

• Docklands offered 21km squared of land to be redeveloped
• Regeneration included building the Canary Wharf building whose tenants includued - global investment banks, newspapers, accounting firms and HSBC HQ
• Huge skyscrapers
• Developing transport e.g. extending underground (Jubilee Line) and developing a light railway
• Developing new road links e.g. Limehouse road link
• Built London City Airport which provides easy access into the city from European cities eg. Paris

Success:

• Local people argue that East London still suffers deprivation, poor health and poor environmental quality
• Geographers that study health found that a journey along the Jubilee Line reduced life expectancy by 9 years

Key Players:

• Landowners
• Designers and developers - ideas on how land can be developed
• Investors - provide finance
• Local authorites - provide planning permission
• Local people - can object to plans
• Central Government - creates policies about where land is developed and how

Need to Rebrand:

• Technology advances mean air travel is cheaper so more people are taking holidays abroad
• High levels of unemployment, mental illness, drug use, crime, prostitution and antisocial behaviour
• Multiple deprivation
• Hotels and tourims businesses closed leading to a spiral of decline

Rebranding Schemes:

• Spa Village - new restaurants, shops, extensive landscaping, 42 super chalets and upmarket beach huts
• Refurbishment of Boscombe Pier which won Pier of the Year in 2010
• Construction of artificial reef - amplifies height of natural waves, meaning more surfable waves and more surfable days
• Beach Pods - £90,000
• Chine Gardens - redesigned to eliminate antisocial behaviour 
• Addiction Centers

Success:

• 32% increase in visitor numbers
• 40% decrease in antisocial behaviour
• Artificial reef doesn't always work as well as it should

Key Players:

• Local people
• Local businesses
• Property developers
• Construction companies
• Local authority
• Central Government

Need to rebrand:

• Wages in Cornwall are among the lowest in the UK, earning an average of £13,900 a year compared to £23,000 for the UK
• Decline in major industries
• Brain drain - smart people moving out

Reason for decline:

Farming: falling farm prices, importing from overseas and withdrawing EU subsidies

Fishing: EU quotas have allocated fish supplies to other countries, decline in overall fishing stocks caused by overfishing

Quarrying: The St Austell area has some of the world's best China reserves, however technology is replacing people to extract clay

Rebranding Schemes:

Extreme Sports Academy: Watergate Bay

• Targeted at younger age group
• Offers courses in surfing, wave skiing and kite surfing
• Owners also run Watergate Bay Hotel that overlooks the academy and beach -> new restaurant, bar and accommodation open all year employing 50-60 people in 2006

Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Restaurant:

• 100 seater restaurant trains local people
• Thirty 16-24 year olds from disadvantaged backgrounds are picked and 15 are chosen to work in the restaurant and train in Cornwall College

CUC - stopping the brain drain:

• University college Falmouth and Exeter University joined forces to create Combined Uni's in Cornwall (CUC)
• Helps graduates set up businesses/secure jobs in knowledge based companies
• Eg. Sixixis - shapes Cornish timber into handmade furniture, Neutralize - computer company helping top clients to improve their placing on internet search engines

Arts and Culture:

• Fowey holds an annual Du Maurier festival which hosts authors, musicians and broadcasters for 11 days

South West Film Studios:

• 2 film studios built
• Create 200 permanent jobs

Success?

• In 2004 the South West film studios went bankrupt
• The building work was never completed
• The owner was arrested for fraudulently obtaining money

Key Players:

• Exeter and Falmouth University
• Celebrities - Jamie Oliver/Rick Stein

What is it?

The Eden project is a visitor attraction in Cornwall. Inside the artificial biodomes are plants from all around the world. There are over a million plants of 6000 different plant types. The biodomes were built in a China Clay pit in St Austell from 625 hexagonal windows.

How was it funded?

Objective 1 funding, grants from the lottery and Millennium Commission, funding from charities

How many people visit each year?

Over 1 million people visit the Eden Project every year. 

How is it sustainable?

• Insulating materials keep plants warm - green roof = warm in winter, cool in summer
• Photovoltaic panels - natural energy, lowered energy consumption
• Low flush toilets
• Taps that turn themselves off
• Rainwater harvesting
• Natural lighting
• Tiles made from heineken bottles
• Mats made from recycled truck tyres
• Lower carbon products

The Benefits:

• Each visitor spends on average £150 in Cornwall
• Demand for holiday cottages has doubled
• Employs 400 full time staff and 600 part time and seasonal staff
• Reduced Cornwall's unemployment by 6%
• Sources all food and drink locally boosting local farmers
• Over 6million people visited in the first 4 years

The Problems:

• Visitor levels have produced huge traffic congestion
• Congestion has increased lorry driver times by 30 minutes
• 3500 cars that fill Eden's parking spaces generate more CO2 than all other sources in St Austell combined
• Few people use the bus link

Objective 1 aims to reduce social and economic differences within the EU. Funding comes from the EU and US, granted to areas where GDP is 75% of the EU average or less. 

Key Players:

• Development agencies who use government money to stimulate and regenerate the economy
• Central Government - arts council, countryside agency
• Environmental groups - Cornwall Heritage Trust
• Education Interests - universities (Plymouth uni do an Eden degree)
• Business Interests - farmers, Eden Project
• Private Individuals - invest their own capital
• Local council

How does it work?

Investors start the process then apply for equal amounts of money from other sources called match funding. This may come from public sources (councils) or private sources (banks)

• Set up £20,000 of their own money
• Get a bank loan making it £40,000
• Ask council to match it making it £80,000
• Bid for South West Development Agency to match it making £160,000
• Bid for Objective 1 funds to match it making £320,000

Success?

Cornish economy grown faster than UK average

• 1994 - 2004 grew at 5.8% per year
• 2003 showed greatest improvement of any region in EU

Need to Rebrand:

• Industrialisation
• Mechanisation 
• Quotas/change of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)
• Farm buildings too small for big machinery
• More imports - between 1996 and 2007 the pound increased in value against the Euro by 33% making imported food cheaper
• 80% of subsidies go to large farms that only make up 20% of all farms

Rebranding Schemes:

• Fishing - film set for Mr Crabtree fishing
• Wedding venue - makes more money, building was too small for machinery so used as wedding venue and accommodation
• Campsite
• Sold/rented cottages

Rebranding Schemes:

• Running two old cottages as a pub
• Using cottages as a butchers/farm shop
• Breeding rare cows - more money, sells them in butchers, uses own beef for weddings/pub
• Higher Level Stewardship Schemes - paid for environmental concerns by English Nature e.g. measures to control soil erosion, 6m headland margins to encourage insects,

Benefits:

• Jobs, money
• Multiplier Effect
• Increased community

Problems:

• Loss of tradition farming
• Traffic, noise pollution

Need to Rebrand:

• Mass unemployment
• Transport congestion
• Lack of basic services
• Uncontrolled growth of squatter settlements

Rebranding Schemes:

• Recycling scheme - collect recyclable waste (enough to fill 7000 skyscrapers) which is taken to  a plant made from recycled materials. Recycles 2/3 of garbage (one of highest rates on planet)
• Parks - turned river banks into parks preventing flooding
• Developers allowed extra storeys on skyscrapers but in return they either have to pay or put extra green space at bottom
• Buses - dedicated bus lanes, 500x cheaper than the subway, 3 types of buses that can transport 2000/3000/4000 people per day. Faster loading and unloading = less pollution. Cuts travel times by 1/3. Cheap - only spend 10% of income on travel

Rebranding Schemes:

• Green Exchange - encourages people to bring recycling to trucks in exchange for food/bus tickets. Helps 30,000 families. Cleaner slums meaning less disease and infection. As people can get into the city for free they have better job opportunities and don't have to earn transport money. Collects 300 tonnes of garbage every month
• Urban Planning - street mall built in 72 hours. Children invited to do painting to stop cars going down there

Was it a success?

• Caters for social, economic and environmental factors
• Making skyscrapers higher but with more green space

Need to Rebrand:

• Poverty - world's 3rd poorest country
• Landlocked - struggle with trade
• Desertification
• Malaria/HIV
• Politically unstable
• Been involved in various conflicts of the region - citizens who traditionally worked in Ivory Coast fled after recent instability - diamond war
• Significant reserves of gold but cotton is economic mainstay. This industry is vulnerable to changes in world prices

Rebranding Schemes:

• Diguettes - lines of stones laid along the contours of gently sloping farmland. It slows down rainwater and gives it a chance to soak into the hard ground. The diguettes also trap soil which builds up behind the stones. Soil erosion is therefore reduced. 400 villages have built diguettes. They have improved crop yields and increased soil depth by 18cm

Rebranding Schemes:

• Groundswells - agroecology - can help overcome hunger and poverty while improving the environment
• Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration of Trees - composting to increase organic matter in soils dramatically increases food production and improves community resilience
• Training to strengthen womens leadership skills
• Savings led credit programs for women - provides them with knowledge and capital to improve their farms and invest in other rural livelihood opportunities such as market gardens and livestock operations. Increased income from these activities allows women to undertake practical activities to better their lives
• Christian Aid - gives £1.50 to buy seeds to grow crops
• Zai Holes - holes in the ground that capture water - add compost and plant trees/crops to recover productive land