ABSTRACT
Planning is an activity carried out by the state in the form of metropolitan, county and district authorities under the general supervision of central government. Relations between these various levels of government were, on the whole, amicable and workable between the end of the war and the mid-1970s. This situation, and the balance of power between Whitehall and town hall, has changed significantly in the last decade or so and some brief account is required of why this is so.
