Urban Planning under Conservatism

Abstract

In Chapter 2 we briefly described the role of urban planning legislation as an instrument for the promotion of urban containment. We indicated the importance of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, to the establishment of a post-Second World War urban planning system based on the preparation of land-use plans and the regulation of urban change through development control legislation. The impact of this system extended beyond its role in fostering containment. It provided, and, to a considerable extent, continues to provide, the guiding day-to-day framework which regulated development in British cities. If the approaches, initiatives and, latterly, policies, which we have examined in the preceding chapters constituted the emerging grand designs of governments for dealing with urban problems, then urban planning legislation provided the less spectacular everyday means by which much of the change was managed.