Rebuilding Britain's Blitzed Cities by Catherine Flinn

Author:Catherine Flinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK

Conclusion

Although historians of reconstruction planning have often examined the cities in light of political influences, and have often politicized the planning issues, this chapter and its predecessors have shown that personalities often had substantial impact on the planning and reconstruction process. While Exeter City Council had a Conservative majority they tended to plan comprehensively, acquired large portions of city centre land and did not make cooperative gestures to local business. Liverpool, meanwhile, also Conservative until 1955, planned less comprehensively and was very keen to cooperate with local business. Hull’s council was fairly split, though it shifted from a more Conservative to a Labour majority after 1945, and had always planned boldly, with councillors digging in against local business opposition and rarely making efforts to work with them. These examples show that the personalities of the actors involved can be at least as influential as local politics. Roy Hattersley’s comment on his experience, albeit in the 1960s, is apropos: ‘In those days … local government offered a pleasure which Whitehall and Westminster could never provide. It was possible to watch ideas turn into reality.’270 Planning laws were oriented towards state ownership, in theory, but it varied from city to city how much of the opportunity to acquire land was actually taken. The three cities in this chapter alone illustrate how hugely varied the approaches were – in terms of redevelopment, modernization, expansion or simply problem-solving.

From strong personalities on city councils and in local authority offices, from obstinate or difficult individuals to those who were cooperative and amenable, the stories detailed within the blitzed cities vary greatly. But the complexity of issues is dominated mainly by property ownership: from owner-occupier traders to large multiple firms and department stores, to public transport and even utilities, most of the obstacles to implementing postwar plans came from those who either did not want to be displaced, or inconvenienced, to those who saw the changes as a loss, whether financially or personally. The interplay of relations – even where the players did not know each other or of the existence of the other – was also crucial. The web of negotiations between the Treasury, IPC, planning ministry, transport and housing ministries and more were all part of the nuanced and complex picture that is an overlooked aspect of the postwar period, particularly around reconstruction. Still, the final negotiations were those with the developers, freeholders, leaseholders and others who would privately – or in cooperation with local authorities – complete the process and build the city centre buildings. The following chapter will show how the last of these negotiations played out in the provincial blitzed cities.

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