ABSTRACT
Mr Crossman, in an address to the Association of Municipal Corporations at their Torquay Conference in September 1965, spoke more plainly than any Minister of Housing and Local Government had ever done before about the present state of local government. Mr Crossman went on to say that effective planning is impossible at present owing to the cold war between local authorities, their undersized areas, and the impossibility of providing enough qualified planners to meet the needs of 150 local planning authorities. Water supply and water resources, the police forces, transport and traffic regulation, all present problems which cannot be solved within the existing framework of local government. The Local Government Commission, said the Minister, is prevented by its terms of reference from producing the reorganization of local government that the people so desperately need.
