ABSTRACT
This is a book about planning in Britain in the 1980s, something which many think no longer exists. It is said that the Thatcher governments have all but abolished planning since 1979. The relaxation of many controls, the introduction of enterprise zones and simplified planning zones, the transfer of planning powers to urban development corporations, the greater stress on market criteria in development control decisions, all have been taken as lethal attacks on planning itself. Ravetz, for example, observes that:
the Thatcher Administration…is fast dismantling much of the planning system, along with many other parts of the Welfare State. This puts planning on trial, so to speak, for its life. (1986,p. 9)
