The Location of the Beet-Sugar Industry in England and Wales, 1912-36

Abstract

The beet-sugar industry of England and Wales was established between 1912 and 1928. A general examina- tion of its locational pattern shows its links with the sugar-beet growing area, but a more detailed analysis reveals significant anomalies. Marginal factories are identified, and the reasons for their marginal locations are seen to be the policies of the companies responsible for developing the industry. The three principal companies (or groups) are shown to have different aims and different concepts of the most efficient plant size. Group ownership was reflected also in the nature of the output of each factory. While classical location theory suggests that beet-sugar factories have strong ties with sugar-beet growing areas, even in a raw material-oriented industry such as this, corporate policies and behavioural variables have played an important role in guiding the location of the processing plants. Two of the more important trends in the geography of manufacturing at the present time are the attempts to include behavioural variables in locational analysis and the increasing awareness of the significance of the geography of the firm or enterprise. H. A. Simon1 has shown the difficulty of using Economic Man in the analysis of real world situations, and J. Wolpert2 was among the first to attempt to analyse the spatial implications of decisions taken by men with limited ability and with less than perfect information. Although Wolpert was concerned principally with a farming community, he made the observation that 'there is little about the theoretical framework or approach used in (his) analysis which is not equally applicable to the decision process of the firm in manufacturing'.3 A. Pred4 developed this new approach to the study of manufacturing locations by expanding the ideas of E. M. Rawstron5 and D. M. Smith6. For any plant, Pred argues, there may be one or more optimum points and spatial profitability margins, and within these margins a plant may operate anywhere at some, but not maximum, profit. It is within these areas bounded by spatial profitability margins that behavioural variables play a major role in guiding locational patterns. Classical location theory is concerned primarily with the location of single plant firms, but R. B. McNee has shown in a series of articles7 that many decisions in manufacturing are taken by multi-plant concerns whose aims may differ quite markedly from those of the company operating only one factory. A more recent review of the geography of enterprise