ABSTRACT
Politics is a matter of boring down strongly and slowly through hard boards with passion and judgement together. It considers the prospects for the ‘new urban managers’, the Borough Council, and in particular will consider its prospects in relation to the industrialists who, as has been demonstrated, placed considerable constraints on the Corporation’s actions. The specific case of Stevenage illustrates all of these tendencies. Problems associated with employment and unemployment were prominent in early 1978. Mr Overton, Planning Officer for Hertfordshire County Council, stated in January that there was ‘every indication that-things are going too fast’ in terms of employment and housing in Hertfordshire, while at the same time rumours were rife that much of the ‘space’ work undertaken at Stevenage would be moved to Bristol, to fill a gap left by the completion of Concorde.
