TPS was delighted to make this award for the Best Paper by a Young Professional to Edward Dawes of Arup for his paper entitled “Evaluating the Impact of Light Rail on Urban Gentrification : Quantitative Evidence from Nottingham’s LRT” at this year's Transport Practitioners' Meeting.

Edward tested the widely held hypothesis that light rail encourages “gentrification”. Drawing on the literature, he identified a set of gentrification indicators (eg increases in the level of educational attainment of the local population, increases in managerial-level jobs, increases in owner-occupied homes, increases in property values) and then used data from the Office for National Statistics, the Consumer Data Research Council, the Land Registry and a survey of property developers.

His analysis was comprehensive, competent and well presented. 

 Compared with a Control Corridor of similar socio-economic characteristics, he found that the light rail corridor raised land values but underperformed in terms of gentrification, and concluded that the hypothesis was not supported by the evidence, at least in the seven years after scheme opening.

TPS felt that this was a well written paper presenting a strong piece of analysis where the evidence was allowed to dictate the conclusion (unfortunately, not always the case). It was a professional piece of work presented in a clear and well structured manner, and reflects very well on the capabilities of the younger sector of our profession.

A copy of his paper can be downloaded here  Edward Dawes paper.docx

Photographs  supplied by Kitty Wheeler Shaw Photography

www.kittywheelershaw.co.uk