Mitch Langford

WISERD Co-Director University of South Wales

mitchel.langford@southwales.ac.uk 01443654148

Mitch Langford Bio

Inequalities, civic loss and well-being uses innovative methods, including app-based surveys of spatial mobility and data linkages, to compare place-based and individual measures of accessibility, and explore how changing patterns of civic loss and gain relate to measures of health and well-being. Start date provided is that of the WISERD Civil Society Centre. Work packages…

Research Team: Andrew Price (University of South Wales), Gary Higgs (University of South Wales), Mitch Langford (University of South Wales)

Implications of Spatial & Temporal Variation in Service Provision for Inequalities in Social Outcomes

Overview The study carried out analysis of existing secondary sources of quantitative data in order to investigate levels of social capital within communities in relation to changing levels of provision of key public services. The study built on research conducted in Phase 1 of WISERD on the use of enhanced two step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) techniques to examine…

Research Team: Gary Higgs (University of South Wales), Mitch Langford (University of South Wales), Nicholas Page (Cardiff University), Scott Orford (Cardiff University)

Journal Articles

Spatial and temporal access to warm spaces during the winter of 2022/2023

It is estimated that over half a million people visited one network of ‘warm rooms’ during the winter of 2022 in the UK, a figure that may rise to 2.5 million people if other networks are considered. As well as offering a means to try to limit exposure to cold temperatures and reduce household energy costs,…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Health, Wellbeing & Social Care | August 2023

Journal Articles

Quantifying disparities in access to recreational opportunities by alternative modes of transport

The paper draws upon open-source technologies to present methods of incorporating multiple travel modes into GIS analyses of cumulative opportunity and proximity-based metrics of accessibility. Two case studies are undertaken. The first uses isochrone analysis to evaluate national access to sport facilities expected to appeal to a broad range of ages and abilities. Predictably, urban…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Localities | March 2023

Reports and Briefings

Mapping active travel variations in access to key services in Wales

Introduction Events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic drew attention to the importance of local neighbourhoods as people were encouraged wherever possible to work from home, the physical and mental health benefits of active means of travel were promoted, and communities became more reliant on services in their local areas. At the same time governments around the…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Inequalities, Localities | Inequalities, civic loss and well-being | November 2022

Journal Articles

Investigating the impact of bank branch closures on access to financial services in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic

There is a longstanding policy interest in understanding the impacts of changes in access to public and private services in rural areas. To date much of the empirical analysis concerning changing patterns of accessibility has been predicated on assumptions regarding the mode of transport used to access such facilities. The availability of new and open…

Civil Society, Inequalities, Localities | October 2022

Journal Articles

Combining Temporal and Multi-Modal Approaches to Better Measure Accessibility to Banking Services

The UK, as elsewhere, has seen an accelerating trend of bank branch closures and reduced opening hours since the early 2000s. The reasons given by the banks are well rehearsed, but the impact assessments they provide to justify such programs and signpost alternatives have been widely criticized as being inadequate. This is particularly so for…

Localities | June 2022

Other

Access all areas or missing the bus? Monitoring the impact of COVID-19 on Welsh bus services

Academics at the University of South Wales, affiliated to WISERD, have looked at how the pandemic has affected bus service levels across Wales. Their guest article details how the most deprived areas – where people most depend on bus services – have been hardest hit.

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Localities | April 2022

Journal Articles

Towards an understanding of inequalities in accessing residential and nursing home provision: The role of geographical approaches

Suggestions of the existence of so-called ‘social care deserts’ in England in the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic drew attention to the potential impact of geographical inequalities on the availability of residential, nursing and domiciliary care. To date, much of this analysis has been conducted at spatially aggregated scales such as that of…

Civil Society, Health, Wellbeing & Social Care, Inequalities, Localities | Inequalities, civic loss and well-being | February 2022

Applied Spacial Analysis and Policy cover

Journal Articles

Understanding Spatial Variations in Accessibility to Banks Using Variable Floating Catchment Area Techniques

Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy: Contemporary Applications for Spatially Integrated Social Science 14(3) pp 449-472 In response to changing consumer habits driven by the advance of online services and mobile apps, substantial reductions in the provision of bank branches have been widely documented over the last decade. Such closures have economic consequences for the sustainability of…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Inequalities, Localities | Inequalities, civic loss and well-being | September 2021

Image of the Journal of Civil Society cover page

Journal Articles

Exploring the relationship between local volunteering opportunities and the propensity to volunteer using a nationally representative survey of adults in Wales

Journal of Civil Society 17(2) pp 101-118 This study explored the respective importance of compositional (individual) and contextual (neighbourhood) factors associated with the propensity to engage in formal volunteering among a nationally representative sample of adults in Wales, UK. To date, while certain contextual characteristics of local communities have been found to be associated with the…

Civil Society | Implications of Spatial & Temporal Variation in Service Provision for Inequalities in Social Outcomes | July 2021

Journal Articles

Computing geographical access to services: The design of a client–server solution that incorporates multiple transport modes

Transactions in GIS, 25(4) pp 1849-1867 This study describes the design and implementation of a web‐based infrastructure built on open‐source components to enable the computation of accessibility scores. It can be adapted to any form of service provision that is represented as geo‐located points. The solution aims to extend previous attempts to measure and analyse…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Inequalities | Inequalities, civic loss and well-being | March 2021

Other

Mapping Access to Banking Services

Under Senedd Research’s Academic Fellowship Scheme, Associate Professor Mitchel Langford from the University of South Wales explored how the latest digital mapping technologies can lead to a better understanding of the geographical provision of retail banking. The full report Exploring geographical patterns in the changing landscape of retail banking services in Wales (PDF, 3.09 MB) is published as a Wales Institute…

Civil Society, Localities | February 2021

Reports and Briefings

Exploring geographical patterns in the changing landscape of retail banking services in Wales

Over the past decade successive rounds of bank closures and increasing trends towards fee charging ATMs have attracted widespread media and political attention. This report explores how the latest developments in spatial analytical techniques can provide detailed insight into patterns of provision and change. These techniques are used to provide estimates of accessibility at local community…

Civil Society, Localities | February 2021

Presentation

The Design and Development of a client-server based tool to Compute Accessibility to Sporting Facilities in Wales

Presented by the authors at GIS Research UK Conference 2020 This paper draws on a new database of gymnastics facilities, the use of Two-Step Floating Catchment Area (E2SFCA) techniques, to measure potential accessibility for both private and public transport networks using a web-based tool to collect the network distances for the transport. Plans to incorporate…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Health, Wellbeing & Social Care, Localities | Inequalities, civic loss and well-being | July 2020

Journal Articles

Exploring spatiotemporal variations in public library provision following a prolonged period of economic austerity: A GIS approach

Area 52(2) pp 342-353 This paper demonstrates the applicability of GIS tools for investigating the implications of changes in public service provision following a prolonged period of economic austerity in the UK. Using the example of geographical accessibility to public library service points in Wales, levels of provision are estimated for two cross‐sections in time to…

Civil Society, Inequalities | Implications of Spatial & Temporal Variation in Service Provision for Inequalities in Social Outcomes | June 2020

Journal Articles

Using Geographic Information Systems to investigate variations in accessibility to ‘extended hours’ primary healthcare provision

There are ongoing policy concerns surrounding the difficulty in obtaining timely appointments to primary healthcare services and the potential impact on, for example, attendance at accident and emergency services and potential health outcomes. Using the case study of potential access to primary healthcare services in Wales, Geographic Information System (GIS)‐based tools that permit a consideration…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Health, Wellbeing & Social Care, Localities | Implications of Spatial & Temporal Variation in Service Provision for Inequalities in Social Outcomes | June 2019

Journal Articles

Investigating spatial variations in access to childcare provision using network-based Geographic Information System models

A “flagship” policy outlined in the current Welsh Government’s 2016 Programme for Government aims to provide 30 hours of free early education and childcare per week to the working parents of three‐ and four‐year‐olds. However, in common with many other countries, there is currently a lack of detail regarding existing levels of childcare provision that can act as…

Civil Society, Health, Wellbeing & Social Care | Implications of Spatial & Temporal Variation in Service Provision for Inequalities in Social Outcomes | July 2018

Journal Articles

An exploratory analysis of spatial variations in organ donation registration rates in Wales prior to the implementation of the Human Transplantation (Wales) Act 2013

Spatial variations in rates of registered organ donors have not been studied in the UK at detailed spatial scales despite some evidence of national and regional differences. By drawing on the findings from the existing literature, this study examines associations between small-area variations in rates of new registrants to the UK organ donor register (ODR)…

Civil Society, Localities | Implications of Spatial & Temporal Variation in Service Provision for Inequalities in Social Outcomes | May 2018

Journal Articles

An evaluation of alternative measures of accessibility for investigating potential ‘deprivation amplification’ in service provision

Studies examining potential social inequities in resource distribution have tended to adopt relatively unsophisticated measures of service supply such as those derived from proximity measures or counts of facilities within given time/distance thresholds. Often such measures do not take into account potential demand for services and the implications this has for understanding socio-spatial patterns in…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Localities | Implications of Spatial & Temporal Variation in Service Provision for Inequalities in Social Outcomes | April 2018

Image of the Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy journal cover

Journal Articles

Measuring spatial accessibility to services within indices of multiple deprivation: implications of applying an enhanced two-step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) approach

Approaches to calculating spatial accessibility within existing indices of multiple deprivation (IMD) methodologies are based on ‘traditional’ accessibility metrics and tend not to adopt more recent methodological enhancements. In particular, the last decade has seen a relatively large body of studies that have applied floating catchment area (FCA) methods that account for both service supply…

Civil Society, Inequalities, Localities | Implications of Spatial & Temporal Variation in Service Provision for Inequalities in Social Outcomes | December 2017

Cover of Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

Journal Articles

Assessing the Impacts of Changing Public Service Provision on Geographical Accessibility: an examination of public library provision in Pembrokeshire, South Wales

Public libraries make an important contribution to the wellbeing of local people often acting as community hubs by reducing the isolation felt by vulnerable members of society through promoting social interaction and supporting the wider needs of local communities. However, access to libraries is threatened in Wales, as elsewhere in the UK, by uncertainty stemming…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Localities | Implications of Spatial & Temporal Variation in Service Provision for Inequalities in Social Outcomes | July 2017

Journal Articles

Modelling spatial access to General Practitioner surgeries: Does public transport availability matter?

Existing approaches investigating access to primary health care tend to use relatively crude measures that compare supply to demand ratios for administrative units or use GIS to calculate straight-line or network distances to the nearest facility. The latter however largely assume access is via private modes of transport. The aim of this paper is to…

Health, Wellbeing & Social Care, Inequalities, Localities | May 2017

Journal Articles

Investigating geospatial data usability from a health geography perspective using sensitivity analysis: The example of potential accessibility to primary healthcare

Network distance and travel times are two popular methods of measuring potential geographic accessibility and networks are also used in gravity model-based approaches such as floating catchment area (FCA) techniques. Although some research has been conducted to assess the effectiveness of the representation of demand- (population) or supply- (destinations) side characteristics within such models, there…

Health, Wellbeing & Social Care, Localities | April 2017

Journal Articles

The application of network-based GIS tools to investigate spatial variations in the provision of sporting facilities

Methods whereby access to facilities can be captured in order to support national policies geared towards promoting sports participation and help plan the provision of local facilities are urgently needed. Objective measures derived from the use of Geographical Information Systems can be used to gain an understanding of spatial variations in the location and quality…

Civil Society, Education, Health, Wellbeing & Social Care | Implications of Spatial & Temporal Variation in Service Provision for Inequalities in Social Outcomes | January 2017

Journal Articles

Multi-modal two-step floating catchment area analysis of primary health care accessibility

Two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) techniques are popular for measuring potential geographical accessibility to health care services. This paper proposes methodological enhancements to increase the sophistication of the 2SFCA methodology by incorporating both public and private transport modes using dedicated network datasets. The proposed model yields separate accessibility scores for each modal group at each…

Health, Wellbeing & Social Care, Inequalities, Localities | February 2016

Journal Articles

Accessibility to sport facilities in Wales: A GIS-based analysis of socio-economic variations in provision

Previous studies concerned with investigating the relationship between levels of physical activity and aspects of the built environment have often led to inconsistent and mixed findings concerning associations between the availability of recreational or sport facilities and area socio-economic status. Further complications may arise when analysis is conducted separately for access to either publicly available…

Health, Wellbeing & Social Care, Inequalities, Localities | May 2015

Journal Articles

Measuring Access to Primary Health Care using Two-Step Floating Catchment Areas and a Public/Private Multi-modal Transport Network

Floating catchment area (FCA) models are widely promoted as a technique to measure potential accessibility in a range of health applications. Since their initial formulation in the early 2000s a number of enhancements have been proposed to better measure accessibility. Encouraged by the growing availability of road network data, and a realisation of the inherent…

Health, Wellbeing & Social Care, Inequalities, Localities | January 2015

Journal Articles

Investigating the validity of rural-urban distinctions in the impacts of changing service provision: The example of postal service reconfiguration in Wales

There has been a longstanding interest in the impacts of socio-spatial variations in accessibility to public and private services in both urban and rural contexts. Previous studies have found that rural communities are often disproportionately impacted in accessibility terms by changes in service configuration. The aim of this study is to examine such claims in…

Civil Society, Localities | April 2013

Journal Articles

Using Floating Catchment Analysis (FCA) techniques to examine intra-urban variations in accassibility to public transport oportunities: the example of Cardiff, Wales

A relatively large literature base exists on the use of GIS to measure accessibility in transport studies. Often such research efforts have been conducted as part of wider studies of social exclusion to public transport opportunities. This paper aims to explore the use of floating catchment analysis (FCA) techniques to measure access to public transport…

Civil Society, Localities | August 2012

Journal Articles

Investigating the implications of using alternative GIS-based techniques to measure accessibility to green space

A large body of research has examined relationships between accessibility to green space and a variety of health outcomes with many researchers finding benefits in terms of levels of physical activity and relationships with levels of obesity, mental health, and other health conditions. Such studies often use spatial analytical techniques to examine relationships between distance…

Data & Methods, Localities | April 2012

Journal Articles

Measuring transit system accessibility using a modified two-step floating catchment technique

Previous research has drawn attention to the importance of measuring accessibility to public transit services for transport planning and decision-making purposes and to the use of GIS to produce accessibility maps. Existing measures have been criticised for their lack of sophistication and reliance on simple operations such as Euclidean buffering. This article introduces an accessibility…

Data & Methods, Localities | November 2011

Journal Articles

Web-based GIS approaches to enhance public participation in wind farm planning

Planning information pertaining to the potential visual impacts of proposed construction developments is particularly important in the case of wind farm planning, given the high levels of concern amongst members of the public regarding the perceived negative visual impacts of wind turbines on the landscape. Previous research has highlighted the shortcomings associated with traditional visualization…

Data & Methods, Localities | April 2011

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers journal cover

Journal Articles

Accessibility and public service provision: Evaluating the impacts of the Post Office Network Change Programme in the UK

The importance of public service provision and accessibility in shaping government policies aimed at enhancing social inclusion and ensuring social justice in the UK is well founded. The capabilities of GIS for generating information to address such concerns have facilitated a widespread interest in measuring and analysing accessibility to public services. Previous studies have drawn…

Civil Society, Localities | Implications of Spatial & Temporal Variation in Service Provision for Inequalities in Social Outcomes | October 2010

Reports and Briefings

The use of GIS-derived accessibility measures in mixed methods research: a research agenda

This paper aims to review the state of play of GIS use in measuring accessibility to services drawing on work in areas such as health, public services, transport and environmental justice. The first section describes what is meant by ‘accessibility’ in the context of our research. To date this has predominantly been concerned with measures…

Data & Methods | January 2010

Journal Articles

GIScience, Environmental Justice, & Estimating Populations at Risk: The Case of Landfills in Wales

There has been a notable increase in the use of geographic information systems (GIS) in studies of environmental (in)justice in the last two decades. Whilst the potential of such techniques is increasingly being recognised, there remain some key research challenges facing researchers interested in wider notions of environmental justice (EJ). One avenue of research concerns…

Localities | October 2009

Blog

Offering a sporting chance: new techniques could help plan the provision of recreation facilities to improve participation

26th April 2023 | Andrew Price, Gary Higgs, Mitch Langford

Our previous studies examining variation in access to sporting facilities in relation to socio-economic patterns in Wales have been predicated on an assumption of private travel as the means of transport. We are now including travel distances and times for alternative modes of transport as part of our accessibility calculations. These are derived from an…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Health, Wellbeing & Social Care, Inequalities, Localities | Inequalities, civic loss and well-being

News

Congratulations Professor Mitchel Langford

10th March 2023 | Mitch Langford

Many congratulations to WISERD Co-director Mitchel Langford who has been successful in the latest Higher Academic Awards appointments Mitchel Langford has been conferred the title of Professor in Spatial Analysis and Geo-informatics at the University of South Wales. Mitch’s research interests include geographical accessibility modelling and geospatial analysis in the fields of healthcare, social inequality…

Research Networks

News

Mode of transport influences access to recreational opportunities

18th January 2023 | Andrew Price, Gary Higgs, Mitch Langford

A new WISERD paper by Andrew Price, Mitchel Langford and Gary Higgs at the University of South Wales has recently been published in the journal, Case Studies on Transport Policy. Using sports facility data from Sport Wales and open-source data on green spaces, the team examine variations in potential access to recreational opportunities by different…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Health, Wellbeing & Social Care, Inequalities, Localities | Inequalities, civic loss and well-being

News

WISERD researchers create new website to examine access to key services in Wales

10th November 2022 | Andrew Price, Gary Higgs, Mitch Langford

A prototype website has been developed by WISERD researchers based at the GIS Research Centre at the University of South Wales (USW) which examines access to key services in Wales. This is part of an ongoing research programme investigating geographical access to services in Wales. The website allows users to see indicators of accessibility to…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Inequalities, Localities | Inequalities, civic loss and well-being

News

New paper highlights the need to consider transport options

25th August 2022 | Andrew Price, Gary Higgs, Mitch Langford

A recent paper by Professor Gary Higgs, Dr Andrew Price and Dr Mitchel Langford of WISERD and the GIS Research Centre published in the Journal of Rural Studies has highlighted the need to consider the transport options available to access services for those dependent on public transport. By drawing on a spatial analysis of the…

Data & Methods, Inequalities, Localities

News

New article published on measuring accessibility to banking services

9th August 2022 | Andrew Price, Gary Higgs, Mitch Langford

A new, open access journal article on measuring accessibility to banking services by Dr Mitchel Langford, Andrew Price and Professor Gary Higgs from the University of South Wales, has been published in the ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. The article demonstrates how accessibility can be measured to bank branches by different times of day and…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Inequalities, Localities | Inequalities, civic loss and well-being

Blog

Deprived areas hit hardest by changes in access to bus services during the pandemic

8th April 2022 | Andrew Price, Gary Higgs, Mitch Langford

Public transport was severely impacted during COVID-19 as people’s daily mobility patterns changed. This led to a substantial drop in demand as many workers were instructed to work from home and social distancing measures were introduced on existing services. Department for Transport statistics show a decline from 91 to 26 million passenger journeys on local…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Health, Wellbeing & Social Care, Inequalities, Localities | Inequalities, civic loss and well-being

News

Investigating geographical inequalities in access to residential and nursing home provision

28th February 2022 | Gary Higgs, Mitch Langford

A new WISERD paper draws attention to how geographical approaches can contribute to an understanding of inequalities in access to nursing and residential care places in Wales. This research has been carried out by WISERD co-directors, Professor Gary Higgs and Dr Mitchel Langford, along with WISERD Associate, Professor Mark Llewellyn, Director of the Welsh Institute…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Health, Wellbeing & Social Care, Inequalities, Localities | Inequalities, civic loss and well-being

Blog

Monitoring inequalities in physical activity opportunities in a post-COVID Wales

18th March 2021 | Gary Higgs, Mitch Langford

Local authorities in Wales have had to make difficult decisions to close or rationalise a wide range of services in response to changes in the incidence of COVID-19. This has had major impacts for those sectors of the community most dependent on various forms of service provision. Where there have been partial closures involving changes…

Civil Society, Health, Wellbeing & Social Care, Inequalities | Inequalities, civic loss and well-being

News

Senedd Research fellowship maps access to banking services in Wales

8th March 2021 | Mitch Langford

Over the past decade successive rounds of bank closures and increasing trends towards the provision of fee charging ATMs have attracted widespread media and political attention. WISERD researcher, Mitchel Langford, an Associate Professor at University of South Wales has published a report on access to banking services as a result of his recent Academic Fellowship…

Civil Society, Localities

Blog

Are banks doing enough to model the impact of branch closures on communities?

17th July 2020 | Gary Higgs, Mitch Langford

We have long become accustomed to the concerns expressed in the letter pages of local newspapers or on various online forums from those members of the public forced (if fortunate to have access to a car) to drive greater distances, or to make alternative and more costly arrangements, to access services such as health, educational,…

Inequalities, Localities | Implications of Spatial & Temporal Variation in Service Provision for Inequalities in Social Outcomes

Blog

Should levels of access to essential services be measured by travel time alone?

15th January 2018 | Gary Higgs, Mitch Langford, Nicholas Page

According to available estimates, residents living in more rural areas of Wales generally need to travel farthest to access a number of key services. Take access to GP surgeries, for instance. A two-way journey by car to a local GP surgery is considered to take, on average, between 10-14 minutes for those living in smaller…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Inequalities, Localities | Implications of Spatial & Temporal Variation in Service Provision for Inequalities in Social Outcomes

News

WISERD analysis helps determine whether Welsh Government can fulfill childcare commitment

6th November 2017 | Gary Higgs, Mitch Langford

WISERD’s bespoke analytical tools were used in a Welsh Government research project to assess whether the existing supply of childcare in Wales can cope with the increased demand due from a change in Government policy. The research and analysis was conducted by WISERD Co-Director Prof Gary Higgs and Dr Mitchel Langford of the University of…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Health, Wellbeing & Social Care | Implications of Spatial & Temporal Variation in Service Provision for Inequalities in Social Outcomes

Training

WISERD TCB Event: Introduction to GIS

8th June 2016 | Pontypridd

This workshop will introduce the concepts and provide participants with hands-on experience of using an open source GIS package. We will also explore how socio-economic data from the UK Census of Population can be downloaded and integrated with other open source data sets such as road network data. Speakers: Gary Higgs & Mitch Langford

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.