The Failure of Land Reform in Twentieth-Century England by Michael Tichelar

Author:Michael Tichelar [Tichelar, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367897383
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

The political response to the Scott Report

The Labour Party supported the recommendations of the Scott Report and accepted without question its primary recommendation that agriculture as an industry had a prior claim to land in rural areas.70 There was a cross-party understanding that the government elected after the war would introduce legislation to achieve this aim. Both Labour and Conservative came to believe that the best way of preserving the countryside and the aesthetics of the landscape was to see the land kept productive through farming. The Labour Party rejected the possibility of introducing manufacturing into rural areas because it supported the view that the purpose of town planning was to control urban sprawl and contain it within existing urban areas or carefully planned new or satellite towns.71 This would help preserve the position of Labour local authorities and protect their vulnerable rate bases from an overemphasis on dispersal of population and industry away from traditional areas of Labour electoral support.72 The need to promote a civic urban consciousness and restore urban life after the war was as equally important as fostering rural idealism and accepting the anti-metropolitan tendencies of the Town and Country Planning Association.73 The Labour Party in particular was keen to emphasise the need for community building in its urban strongholds, as well as the need to bring rural life up to the level of the economic and social conditions of the towns. It was not prepared, however, to sacrifice one for the other. In line with public opinion, it wanted to see the countryside protected as part of a wider programme of reconstruction in both urban and rural areas.

This level of wartime agreement between the parties removed the pressure on the coalition to introduce legislation on Scott before the end of the war. The only area where real policy progress was made on the Scott Report before 1945 was the recommendation for the creation of national parks, although the Treasury was opposed to the setting up of an independent National Parks Authority. The Ministry of Town Planning had appointed John Dower, a planner, self-taught architect and Friend of the Lake District, to prepare a report identifying possible suitable areas of outstanding natural beauty. The White Paper on the Control of Land Use, published in 1944, also reaffirmed the government’s commitment to national parks.74 Dower’s report, which was finally issued in the closing months of the war, was accepted as personal advice to the Minister of Town and Country Planning, and it was left to the post-war government to implement its findings. It identified 8,000 square miles of wild country as potential national park areas and argued that no development other than farming or forestry should be allowed to take place. It also argued that it was not necessary for the land to be acquired by the state, supporting instead a strengthened system of land-use control exercised through a National Parks Commission.75

The war had raised the profile and influence of recreational and amenity groups. The Scott Committee

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