 Using a geographic information system from MapMechanics to analyse and present data on leisure and community projects “has changed my life,” according to Graham Jones, founder of specialist consultancy Leisure and the Environment.
“Clients are so impressed with the depth of analysis and the high standard of presentation we can offer,” he says, adding: “From a personal perspective, the software is powerful and capable, yet it’s a real pleasure to use. I find that working with it is genuinely fulfilling.”
Leisure and the Environment is a well-established consultancy network specialising in recreation, play and sporting activities, and has a strong track record of work for government and local authority clients. Work usually involves assessing and evaluating demand for open spaces suitable for recreation and leisure pursuits, advising on provision of appropriate resources, and helping to draw up action plans for land use planning, infrastructure development and regeneration projects.
Activities range from original surveys of public demand for green spaces to analysis of data such as walking or cycling times to the nearest open space.
Graham Jones points out: “The paradox is that although a lot of this kind of information is best drawn together in maps, until the advent of GIS, people in our business were extremely constrained in terms of what they could offer. Often it came down to felt-tipped drawings on paper maps. It was time-consuming and limited.”
He says he kept a watching eye on the evolution of GIS for some years, and adopted it as soon as it became affordable. “Even now we’re still ahead of the game,” he adds. “Councils may have this kind of capability in theory, but they’re still not always very coordinated in the way they apply it. That’s why they’re still so favourably impressed with the quality of presentation we can offer with GeoConcept.”
Having started by acquiring the GeoConcept GIS from MapMechanics, along with a range of background mapping such as AA 1:200,000 vector data, the organisation has just upgraded to the GeoConcept Expert version.
“This has added various useful new tools,” Graham Jones says. “For instance, we find the ‘cut of polygons’ capability particularly helpful. Clients often want to impose their own breakdown of a site – perhaps when it straddles a river or road, or falls in more than one administrative area. It’s now extremely easy to divide the territory.”
He has also found good use for Zone Identifier, a special feature developed by MapMechanics which allows names to be assigned to given geographical units. “Say we are counting the number of play areas within a ward. With Zone Identifier we can identify each one clearly by name in our analysis.”
A classic recent project using GeoConcept was mounted for Peterborough City Council. Leisure and the Environment was able to create maps that picked out features such as urban parks and play areas by ward. The software’s built-in capabilities were used to present statistics such as provision per thousand members of the population in the form of pie charts and histograms.
In addition, GeoConcept’s isochrone analysis capability was used to find the catchment areas for features for various open spaces, using criteria such as a five- or ten-minute walking time. “We were able to produce coloured thematic drivetime maps to present the data in a way that was compelling yet easy to understand,” Graham Jones says.
Another project in which GeoConcept has played a significant role has been for the Children’s Play Council, for which Leisure and the Environment has been helping to idenfify techniques for mapping and analysing provision and need. As a result of this work, the organisation has played an integral role in helping to draw up national guidelines.
Graham Jones has some words of encouragement for other would-be GIS users. “Initially, as with anything unfamiliar, a tool like GeoConcept can seem daunting, but once you start to gain experience, you find it easy to understand and use.”
He says the support provided by the MapMechanics team has been invaluable, and he has taken full advantage of the training sessions offered by the company. “You’d be hard put to find a better interface between solutions supplier and end user,” he says. “The MapMechanics support staff are excellent at explaining things on the phone in layman’s terms, or using the WebEx system to present demonstrate GeoConcept functions over the internet in real time on my own computer screen.”
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