THE NATURE OF THE PLAN
The Plan for this London
Region, based
upon these assumptions and prepared in close accord with the County of
London Plan, must of necessity consist of general ideas rather than of
detailed proposals. Compared with the County of London and the City
Plans,
it is extensive in place of intensive in nature and in general its
characteristic
will be receptive and developing, instead of decentralising and
replanning.
Again, these two central plans are broadly based upon the requirements
of two individual authorities: with, of course, due reference to their
neighbours and to the constituent bodies of which they are composed -
e.g.,
the Metropolitan Boroughs. The Regional Plan is built up out of a
number
of Counties, County Boroughs and County Districts, many of them of
municipal
status and of the size and importance of distinct towns. The Regional
Plan
is not the sum of the wishes and proposals of these individual
authorities,
however much they may be conceived on planned lines.
We have received, it is true, and
given
the closest attention to the “appreciations of the future” which many
of
these authorities have given us: they were of immeasurable importance
in
illuminating our first steps in the exploration of the area. It is
always
much more satisfactory for the planner to be offered positive ideas by
the locality, than be left entirely free to make up his mind. There are
imponderables of import which even a perfectly prepared scientific
survey
may not register. This is particularly the case where large tracts of
country
are involved and, to agricultural considerations, are added amenity and
even sentiment: for these reasons it may be well to neglect even a
potential
means of “opening up for development” in order to keep a certain
reserve
character of value to the whole of Greater London.
For the same reason there may be
some
disappointment in those young or growing communities for whom the idea
of decentralisation has opened up vistas of industry and population -
the
laudable and natural ambition of an energetic local authority which
feels
itself able to cope with a huge increase and direct it through local
channels
into the full flood of national prosperity .We have observed also in
certain
quarters a tendency to imagine that the moment war ceases London will
resume
her process of absorbing a disproportionate amount of national
development
(which may represent an increase in one area balanced by a
corresponding
decrease elsewhere, though not necessarily a literal transference). For
these people Barlow might never have reported, nor the birth-rate cast
its diminishing shadow before. At one period of our researches it might
have been possible to add up the confident predictions of enterprising
authorities to a greatly increased Metropolitan population. There must,
therefore, inevitably be some disappointments: there may also be, at
first,
some surprise at the recommended abandonment of the vast schemes of
unrelated
house-building, which were in full career in every direction round
London.
The familiar argument that where there is so serious a shortage of
housing
accommodation in the country at large, any houses, of any size, built
anywhere
(and sometimes anyhow) are a contribution to be thankfully received,
and
no questions asked, must no longer count. Nor should the subsequent
grumbles
by Civic and Preservation Societies at the way in which the houses have
been provided - their straggling, lack of coherence, low grade design;
total absence of grouping-be taken as an unrelated comment. This Plan
proposes
a totally different conception of the gigantic central rebuilding and
decentralised
new-building programme with which London as a whole will be faced: an
effort
which will require the co-operation of all building organisations,
financial
and technical, to achieve. There are also mistakes to be corrected: in
some cases industrial locations without due consideration of all the
factors;
in others, loose and staggered units of related, but uncoordinated
activities:
again, proposals for development of land (on quite proper lines)
without
due consideration of its agricultural value: and most frequent of all,
vast areas of housing which have neither unity nor defined boundary. We
have been sparing of our proposals for total instant demolition; though
in some cases we have made use of the Uthwatt suggestion for allotting
a period of “life.” We have, of course, been attracted by unofficial
schemes
which proposed wholesale demolishment of communities, old or new, which
interfered with the symmetry of their pattern: again, we admire the
boldness
of another organisation which proposes as a first step towards national
reconstruction the demolishment of 400,000 recently built houses. Our
notions
are more modest: we have damped down, we have curtailed, what appears
on
full investigation to be wrong, even where money has been sunk in
preliminary
services for opening up - and it will be found that these curtailments
affect works by local authorities, statutory undertakers and private
enterprise.
But wherever possible we have shown how it is still feasible to rescue
and to integrate what we considered was going wrong.
These and more constructive
detailed studies
have been made strictly as samples, in order to illustrate our general
proposals. There has been neither the time nor staff to make detailed
recommendations
throughout the Region: nor would it be appropriate or fitting to usurp
the labours of local initiative. It may indeed be said that nearly
every
town or community in the Region requires some degree of central
replanning:
if it be a congested central borough it needs a complete overhaul of
its
present housing and industrial state: if it has suffered destruction,
it
is not only a policy of decentralisation that is wanted, but immediate
plans of rebuilding to the new standard: if it be an “outer” borough
which
is to receive additional decentralised population and industry, it will
need a thorough examination of its central business, shopping and civic
centres; many of these outer towns have grown in the last 25 years
through
vast suburban accretions while remaining at heart antiquated country
towns,
their shopping centre enlarged by continuous ribboning along the main
traffic
street or intensive rebuilding on their present sites without any
regard
to the extra traffic they are engendering: even those places which have
not greatly increased and which may wish to preserve their civic
integrity,
have had their dignified main street turned into a traffic route which
at weekends may rise to so frenzied a pitch as to slaughter and maim
their
inhabitants and shake their venerable buildings to pieces; external
regional
relief must be accompanied by detailed central replanning which
recognises
that a shopping precinct should not be a traffic artery.
On the other hand, in taking a
broad and
selective outlook, it is not enough, of course, to point to X acres of
land within a certain circumference of London which at a density of Y
persons
could house and occupy the whole population of Greater London at an
amazingly
low density. There are large areas which in the interest of London as a
whole should be kept as reserves of open country: nor are transport and
other facilities equally present. Sites available for absolutely new
towns
are surprisingly limited. If the experiment of real and radical
decentralisation
is to be attempted by the creation of a number of new towns and the
increase
of certain existing centres, every possible care must be taken that the
sites and centres contain in them the seeds of success. The need for
artificial
stimulus is a sign of weakness after the stage of civic infancy has
been
passed. Conditions which are likely to ensure success in the creation
or
enlargement of towns have been most carefully studied from all angles:
the size of the communities; their relation to and separation from each
other; their connection to supplies of raw materials and markets; their
attractions to people to live there and to industrialists or business -
men to work there; their suitability for certain trades and
occupations;
their balance between different trades and male and female labour;
their
means of transport, by air no less than by other means; the topographic
suitability of their sites, etc. The complexities are immense, but it
is
the province of town and country planning to attempt to assess the
value
of the many factors involved and to arrive at a balanced judgment.