Social services in Britain.

  • Great Britain. Central Office of Information. Reference Division.
Date:
1964
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Social services in Britain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    59/124 (page 53)
    TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING AND HOUSING BRITAIN is one of the most densely populated areas in the world and it is essential to plan land use if a satisfactory national distribution of employ- ment and population is to be secured, agriculture safeguarded, the amenities of the countryside preserved, and the improvement of the places where people live and work sustained. PLANNING IN GREAT BRITAIN Administration The Town and Country Planning Act, 1962 (which consolidated earlier planning legislation in England and Wales), and the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act, 1947, are the principal Acts that govern the pattern of land use in Great Britain. They provide for the co-ordination of planning by means of development plans drawn up by local planning authorities and approved by the Minister of Housing and Local Government or the Secretary of State for Scotland; and they control development by making it subject, generally, to the permission of a local planning authority or of a central Government department. They also give extensive powers to public authori- ties to acquire and develop land for planning purposes, and deal with certain questions of amenity, for instance, the preservation of buildings of special historic or architectural interest, and of trees and woodlands, and the control of advertisement display. Compensation is paid for loss of development value through the refusal of planning permission and for the compulsory purchase of land. Development Plans Under the Town and Country Planning Acts, 1947, local planning auth- orities (in England and Wales, the councils of counties and county boroughs and, in some areas, joint planning boards; and in Scotland, councils of counties and of large burghs, and the councils of the two small burghs of St. Andrews and Thurso) were required to prepare and submit development plans for the whole of their areas to the Minister of Housing and Local Government and to the Secretary of State for Scotland respectively. Plans normally cover a period of about 20 years; they must be reviewed at least once in every five years, and may be extended and altered at any time so that they are kept up to date. Green Belts In order to restrict the further sprawl of the large built-up areas, to prevent adjacent towns merging into one another, and in some cases to preserve the special character of a town, the policy has been adopted of establishing ‘green belts’ around all or part of certain urban areas. Within a green belt