ABSTRACT
In this chapter, unless specified, all references relate to the Town and Country Planning Act (TCPA) 1990.
The TCPA 1947 provided the original procedure for making development plans designed to cover the whole of the country. These plans took two forms: the six inches to one mile town plans for urban areas, and one inch to one mile for the remaining rural areas. The procedure for producing these plans continued, albeit slowly, until 1 July 1969, when the TCPA 1968 came into operation and adopted a ‘split’ in the development plan system into structure plans and local plans. These new forms of plan had been recommended by the Planning Advisory Group Report, ‘The Future of Development Plans’ (1965, HMSO), which envisaged that both plans would be prepared by unitary authorities. Instead of adopting this approach, the 1968 Act required that the metropolitan and shire county councils should prepare structure plans. Local plans were to be prepared under the general aegis of the structure plan by the shire district councils as and when the authorities thought it to be appropriate.
