Irrepressible London
The latest document on the planning of Greater London bears a formidable title. It is a Memorandum by the Minister of Town and Country Planning on the Report of the Advisory Com- mittee for London Regional Planning which was set up to co-ordinate the views of some xso local authorities on the original plan for Greater London produced by Sir Patrick Abercrombie in x945. If it is added that the Report has also been discussed with the Greater London Inter-departmental Committee composed of the representa- tives of at least nine Central Government Departments, it will have been sufficiently demonstrated that the work of examination has been complex. But compared with the practical complexities of this area of 2,700 square miles, housing xo,3o0,00o people, it was as nothing. What is more, the vast scheme which now begins to emerge, not merely in outline but in detail, must so far be accounted good. Mr. Silkin and his department have impressively demonstrated their . grasp of the wider aspects of the plan by making a number of amendments to the Advisory Committee's Report, all of which are enlightened and must command assent. Nobody will quarrel with the reduction of the numbers to be housed in the towns of the Green Belt, or with the close scrutiny which is being given to all proposals for the building of satellite towns and which has so far resulted in the rejection of six of the ten originally suggested. The very basis of the satellite town idea is still in doubt. The difficulty of pre-
venting mere dormitory development, the extreme scarcity of suit- able sites, the obstacles to the recruitment of staff and above all the fantastic expense of initial development, all argue caution, and support the idea that the population to be moved out should be accommodated by the expansion of existing towns such as Newbury, Aylesbury, Bletchley and Basingstoke. The long-term drift to the London Region has not ended yet. London's population is at present in- creasing at the alarming rate of half a million a year. And, since, this movement cannot be Stopped altogether, the best solution is probably provided by a counter-pull to the outer fringes of the region. But a voluntary full stop to the movement would be best of all
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