Abstract
SINCE the appearance in 1944 of the White Paper on the utilization of land issued by the Coalition Government, it has been fairly certain that any proposals for a central planning authority and for dealing with the difficult problems of compensation and betterment advanced by the Government of the day would be controversial. Of the Planning Bill introduced by Mr. Silkin, it must be said that while it goes a long way towards establishing a workable system planning the use of the land and meeting the fundamental requirements, it is not unreasonably controversial. Dispute as to the price the community should pay for extinguishing the development rights of private owners of land does not alter the plain fact that the extinction of those rights removes the largest single impediment to planning of the use of land on national lines. Moreover, the decision not to transfer to national ownership all land about to be developed, as was recommended by the Uthwatt Committee, and to levy a betterment charge only when a change of land use occurs, in place of a levy on all increments of site value, may add indirectly to the cost of good planning but should not seriously hamper it. The planning sections of the Bill appear to concede virtually all that planners and local authorities have demanded for a generation, and the wide extension of Exchequer grants to local authorities should banish the last remaining fear of local authorities that the policy of systematic urban dispersal, extension of open space in central areas, and the conversion of land to more socially valuable uses, although less remunerative financially, will involve them in financial losses and compensation charges which they cannot face.
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USE OF THE LAND IN BRITAIN. Nature 159, 415–417 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/159415a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/159415a0