ABSTRACT
Mr Jones not concerned to discuss the merits of their regional plans but to describe the machinery which has been used for doing them and what he think is the right machinery for doing the next lot. The 1947 Act, by transferring planning functions from district councils to county councils, reduced the number of local planning authorities from some 1,400 to 145, thus very greatly facilitating Ministerial control. Subject only to the broad framework of the development plan the local planning authorities have discretion in the exercise of their powers of development control. The government—without any change in the legislative framework—has itself entered directly into the field of regional planning, and several regional studies, of very different characters, have already been published. To be effective for regional planning and development, more co-ordination of activities and boundaries will be needed.
