ABSTRACT
The Government rallied its feeble courage by inserting a sentence in the White Paper stating that they ‘naturally do not take the view that no changes should be proposed to Parliament except with the agreement of the local authorities’. In consequence ‘the most careful attention has therefore been paid to the views expressed by the representatives of the Local Authority Associations’. The White Paper gave no lead about the best manner of dealing with the conurbations. The rest of the White Paper spelt out in detail the Government’s deferential attitude towards the associations and the desire of both the Minister and the associations to interfere to the least possible extent with vested municipal interests. The proposals follow closely on the lines agreed by the associations but with an added insistence that only very exceptional circumstances could justify any significant changes.
