ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1, the Secretary of State was quoted as seeing himself on the horns of a dilemma, due to widespread concern about the need for low cost rural housing and also the effects of further building in the countryside. This chapter reviews the political dilemma facing the government as it seeks to devise a planning policy for land release compatible with its housing policy reforms. This involves a brief account of the debate over land availability, an attempt to unravel the corporatist liaisons of the central state and a discussion of the relationship between the central and local states. These, of course, are major topics deserving of a much lengthier treatment than is possible here (Shucksmith and Watkins 1988a-d).
