ABSTRACT
In previous chapters it has been shown that the Second World War intervened at a critical stage in the slum clearance and redevelopment programme. Clearance and rebuilding had proceeded most rapidly outside the major cities, and where combined with decentralization. The later stages of the programme, with more inner-city rebuilding, were never reached and almost the whole of the redevelopment area programme planned for major cities had yet to be started. Before such extensive physical and social change could occur, redevelopment plans were modified during the war, and the first part of the chapter examines the most relevant single document of that period, the County of London plan. The second part then goes on to look at war-time planning in the wider national context, and at relationships between housing and planning. Whereas by 1942 it was almost universally conceded that planning had been too weak between the wars, the housing policies and programmes of the immediate pre-war period could be presented in a more favourable light. Tensions between housing and planning were to have a major impact on post-war outcomes.
