ABSTRACT

The 1947 Act was decisive in giving legal form to ‘control by consents’ that had begun to emerge as the way forward from the late 1930s. In that light, the absence of debate about development control in the 20 years after the passing of the Act is all the more remarkable. While plan preparation and the surveys that would be undertaken as a necessary part of the process were the subject of government policy and professional comment, development control received a meagre share of either. Not until the late 1960s did development control begin to attract as much policy attention as plan making, and critical comment only followed in the 1970s. Certainly plan making remained the more glamorous end of the new planning system. The application of social science methodology to the survey work began to point planning in a very different direction from the physically deterministic planning schemes of the previous legislation. The Ministry on the other hand was intent on bringing some coherence to the plans that would be prepared for the country as a whole, by advising on standards for physical layout and use of land.