ABSTRACT

The main destabilising factor of the previous relatively benign climate of central–local relations was the juxtaposition of a prime minister, ideologically and personally antipathetic to local government, and the growing influence of the so-called 'hard left' in the town and county halls of Britain. The trajectory of central–local relations can be linked to a series of ad hoc issues, which individual ministers have either felt obliged to deal with, or have chosen to do so. The conflicts generating these measures and the responses to them reset the parameters of central–local relations, and launched them in a direction of centralisation that has continued ever since. This chapter demonstrates that the process of centralisation in land-use planning has proceeded in a piecemeal fashion over the past 40 or so years through a series of ad hoc governmental initiatives, rather than as a long-term conscious strategy by the centre. It addresses the issues of corruption and competence.