ABSTRACT
In many respects land-use planning is the ‘key’ urban policy, for the granting or withholding of planning permission for development together with more positive land-use controls can fundamentally affect population movements and patterns of industrial, commercial and government investment. As such, land values, and housing and employment opportunities can be directly affected by governments’ planning policies. In the present chapter, land-use planning policy will be defined in terms of legislation affecting local plan making and regulation of development, as well as land-use policies such as the dispersal of population and investment to New Towns, which are designed to control and direct the growth of development between and within conurbations and regions. Specifically economic policies designed to achieve similar objectives will be discussed in Chapter 6. Because of the central importance of this policy area, the main changes in central government administrative structure in the urban policy area and in central/local relations will also be reviewed in this chapter.
