ABSTRACT
The most desirable reform would be the creation both in the city regions and in the conurbations of directly-elected regional councils covering the industrial, commercial and residential core and also a wide stretch of rural and semi-rural hinterland, extending far beyond the suburbs and comprising domitory settlements, outlying villages and farms, a green belt or a brown agricultural belt, garden cities or smaller towns and so forth. The Young Conservative scheme has not been worked out and is presented only in the barest outline. The slow processes of reorganization now taking place in England and Wales have been aptly described by Sir William Hart as 'the scanty fruits of much talk of the reform of local government: a modest measure of reorganization, far from fundamental in intention or effect. The present reforms are the outcome of discussions which aimed at achieving the minimum changes needed to prevent a breakdown.
