ABSTRACT
The physical planning problems over which a strategic view might have some influence, such as housing supply, transport investment, or major land use changes in both urban and rural areas, have all remained without any consistent blueprint for change. Exhortation, basically to 'let the market decide', is all that has been on offer. The result has been an endless series of local battles, for example over the future of the green belt, the construction of commuter villages, the alignment of the Channel Tunnel links, or the belated insertion of adequate infrastructure to support London's Docklands development.
