Welsh Journals

Second home distributions and their evolution over time in Cemaes, West Wales R. B. DAVIES and P. N. O'FARRELL Respectively Lecturer and Senior Lecturer, Department of Town Planning, U.W.I.S.T., Cardiff Project Description Most of the second homes research literature concentrates on three distinct topics: locational patterns and processes, economic impact, and community/sociological impact. This SSRC sponsored project is concerned with the first of these topics, and is one of several inter- related second home research projects being undertaken or super- vised by Dr. R. B. Davies and Dr. P. N. O'Farrell. Two research assistants are working on the project: Mr. P. J. Broomhead and Miss J. M. Sinclair. The project commenced in November 1977 and is scheduled for 12 months. However, some data were collected on second homes in North Pembrokeshire during a student field study visit in 1974 and these data are being utilized in the present study. In addition to accurate mapping of dwellings and the abstraction from secondary sources of information on locational characteristics through the study area, time series tenure data are being collected on every dwelling in the study area. By adopting a data collection method- ology including systematic local enquiry to check information from rating records, the project should largely avoid the main weaknesses of second home studies in Britain, namely, definitional problems, data inaccuracy, and lack of an explicit time dimension. Moreover, data collection and analysis have been planned within an hypothesis testing and model building framework. By means of zonal level regression models and cross-classification analyses, it is hoped to contribute to the understanding of intra-regional processes of second home development. In particular, the experimental design will enable conclusions to be drawn as to some of the factors affect- ing the spatial distribution of second homes and its evolution over time. The results should also have practical applications in terms of control and zoning of development; they should contribute to the answering of some of the questions on planning aspects of second homes posed by Downing and Dower (1973). For example, what