ABSTRACT
The Labour Party boldly embraced the principle of regionalism. Their Report proposed the creation of a series of regional or major authorities whose areas would be sufficiently large to have adequate resources and to provide large-scale services but not so large as to lose any sense of common interest among the inhabitants of the region. These regional authorities would have extensive planning and administrative powers. Below the region would probably be ‘an adaptation of the existing county areas, with amalgamations and absorptions of existing authorities, where necessary, to achieve a satisfactory unit’. Each region would thus contain a number of area authorities to administer purely local services and others delegated to them by the major authority.
