•  Introductory
• Character of Growth of Outer London
• Indications of Structure
• Assmptions
• The Nature of the Plan
• Structure of the Plan: Zoning; the Four Rings
• Structure of the Plan:  Communications
• Structure of the Plan:  the Open Background
• The Policy Aimed At in the Detailed Movement of Population and Work - SPORADIC MOVEMENT OR OSCILLATION: SPECULATIVE BUILDING: VILLAGES - DECENTRALISATION IN AND NEAR THE REGION:APPLICATION TO EXISTING COMMUNITIES: NEW SITES: QUASI-SATELLITES - POPULATION DISPERSED OUTSIDE THE REGION - THE DECENTRALISING BOROUGHS AND THE SUBURBAN RING - INDUSTRIAL LOCATION COMPARED WITH HOUSING - DETAILED STUDIES - STANDARDS - PUBLIC SERVICES
• Realisation: Design and Amenity
• Realisation: the Administrative machine
• The Picture Aimed At

 

THE PICTURE AIMED AT

The picture which these maps and this written Report attempt to present to the mind, or perhaps more properly to the imagination (for it relies on that) of the Londoner, is a direct extension of that already offered in the County of London Plan. Dominating the aim of both is the community idea - at one end the community of the Capital of the Empire, at the other the communities of simple people whose work and existence happen to lie within this imperial metropolitan region. The centre ranges from the splendours of Westminster and the City to the miseries of the bombed-out rows of East End houses. Outer London is more exclusively concerned with the domestic and industrial aspect, with the exception of main arteries of traffic which pass through it and whose chief objective is the centre: Trunk Railways, One-Purpose Motorways and Aerodromes ranging from world-wide to national use, are situated in it, but are hardly of it. One other exception to the dominance of the local community in the outer region is the girdle of open land - both the Green Belt and the Country Rings, in which all London participates.
The Government has on several occasions, in the first instance through the mouth of the Prime Minister, declared that there shall be available to all citizens after the war, homes, work and food. But their provision is not so simple as it sounds. It is not only quantitative, not only individualistic qualitative, but methodical provision that is required.
It is not satisfactory to build millions of houses, even good ones, if they are in the wrong place; if they are too far from work; if they perpetuate overcrowded conditions; if they are not grouped into convenient units; if they are not provided with social or shopping centres; if they needlessly usurp the best farmland. Nor can the simple expedient of allotting them pro rata according to population or rate of progress of each local authority in the past be adopted. Many authorities need less houses but better ones: many authorities that can do with more are not in a position to say how many they require: some sites, almost uninhabited, should support large (but not too large) new populations. Huge areas of housing, dumped down where a piece of cheap land can be bought and where a good service to the centre of London exists or can be contrived, are examples of housing before planning.
Nor is it wise to dispose of war factories merely because the buildings are there and some quick money can be made by a sale: nor to allow any speculator who obtains a patch of ground and gets consent from a complaisant planning authority, to tempt industrialists to settle there, whether or no it is properly sited for transport or labour. Distressed areas, hypertrophied agglomerations and unbalanced old towns (which erstwhile pursued an even existence) are some of the results of business before planning.
Lastly, our supplies of fresh food, which not only minister to health but to the pleasure of existence, are curtailed by the haphazard scattering and ribboning of houses and factories, not only building upon the best land but mauling what is not wholly lost and breaking up economic working farm units: or perhaps worse still, pushing agriculture ever further and further away under the specious excuse that quickened means of transport can redress the place distance by time-saving.
To integrate these three aspects and add the all-important one of local and distant communications for people and goods and at the same time ensure that a number of communities emerges, successful (socially and financially) in themselves individually and yet forming part of London as a whole, is by no means so easy. As already pointed out, the communities concerned in this scheme are broadly of four types:
(i) the old inner boroughs, most of which require decanting and reconstruction;
(ii) the built-up suburbs, which need greater community grouping, but which contain considerable areas of a static character;
(iii) the existing towns beyond, many of which are ready and able to receive additions large or small from Inner London; and
(iv) the sites upon which completely new communities are to be created.
It is impossible to say which is the most difficult of these four planning tasks : but they are all worth attempting-indeed they are essential.
If the older municipalities and towns, in spite of shortcomings of overcrowding, obsolescent houses, lack of open space and over-supply of dangerous roads, were nevertheless places of warm human life and sympathy, the Outer London built between the wars was in the main a terrifying waste of unsocial dwellings: nearly every writer upon London’s growth has commented upon it, one of the most recent (G.D.H. Cole) says: “There are an astonishing number of suburbs round London that are very like this suburb of mine. ... and I doubt if, in the whole history of mankind, there has ever been a type of place so lacking in the spirit of community or in democracy or in any sort of unity save that of mere physical juxtaposition.”
A thoughtful study of an estate of smaller houses than those just described, built by a local authority, has been made in order to chronicle its attempts at community making and the reasons for its earlier success and partial failure: among many of a subtle nature, are five simple reasons: the absence of any planning for or provision of a social centre; the blurring of the boundary line, the estate originally surrounded by fields, now engulfed in a sea of houses; the daily scatter in all directions to distant work; a migratory population; administration by three distinct local authorities. These are doubtless details, but it is only by the careful study of these examples that their mistakes can be avoided.
“In planning for peace, as in planning for war, the watchword of the Government is first things first.” (Mr. Attlee’s New Year’s Broadcast, 1944). This is very true, but the simplest brick wall which can procure the builder his trade’s union certificate needs a solid foundation which is no longer seen when the superstructure is complete: the man in a hurry for superficial results resents this solid but hidden work. These first things must first be well and truly laid.
The object of this Plan is to provide the foundations for Greater London upon which homes, work and fresh food can be supplied not only quickly but permanently in full measure. Incidentally, “as many other needs as can be satisfied” (id.) represent the essential components of the Plan to be realised as the new community emerges.