ABSTRACT
In a sense it is unfair to present the growth in inequalities as a criticism of the neo-liberal adminstrations of the 1980s and early 1990s, because they were the intended outcome of the Conservatives’ policies anyway. The drive towards deregulation during the 1980s, and the related move towards the privatisation of both funding-flows and productive activities, had a number of effects so far as the built environment is concerned. Many British planners can see the point too, but their capacity to fashion the environment has been much eroded under neo-liberal governments. The loss of local democracy has occurred in three main ways: the shifting of more power over local spending programs to central government, the privatisation of some services, and the shifting of responsibility for others to quangos or some other form of non-elective body.
