ABSTRACT
This Chapter provides an historical overview of UK transport policy from the 1950s to 1987 viewed through the transport planning literature. The Chapter explores how previous analysts have documented and conceptualized the development of transport policy through this period. Such an analysis provides a picture of the trajectory of policy in order to assess the extent to which UK transport planning could be conceptualized as having a dominant paradigm (Marvin and Guy, 1999; Masser et al., 1992; Owens 1995), or in Hajer’s terms – a hegemonic discourse maintained by an institutionalized discourse coalition. The policy communities, storylines and practices that underpinned this discourse of ‘predict and provide’ will be explored. Competing discourses will be identified and their relative authority examined. Plowden’s conceptualization of transport planning as being characterized by two groups of stakeholders will underpin much of this analysis (Plowden, 1972).
