Before mass motorisation - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 73

businesses. As from February 1950 private road hauliers were to be restricted to providing
carriage services within 25 miles of their operating base, with the publicly owned group
British Road Services thereafter assuming the monopoly of longer distance services.
The Road Haulage Association, acting on behalf of private road hauliers, mounted
a strong campaign against the 1947 Act's provisions concerning road freight. The
Conservative Party championed their cause, and promised to repeal these parts of the
Act. Soon after the Party's re-election in 1951 the 25-mile limit was lifted and the
denationalisation (or 'privatisation') of British Road Services began. At the same time
- consistent with co-ordination through the market rather than administrative control
- historic restrictions on the charging policies of railways were abolished in the 1953
Transport Act.
4.8 Controlling development
The growth of motor vehicles - buses and lorries as much as the private car - coupled
with investment in inter-urban and arterial roads near the edges of towns facilitated
rapid suburban development during the inter-war years. In London underground
and suburban railways were deliberately extended with a view to promoting such
development.
Critics of suburbia frequently described it as 'unplanned sprawl'. In fact many of
the larger developments were carefully designed and formed part of 'town extension'
schemes which local authorities had been given powers to prepare. They provided a
stock of new accommodation built to good standards which enabled people living in
crowded inner city slums to be re-housed. Nevertheless the threat to the countryside
posed by isolated, sporadic development and by the outward march of towns prompted
the establishment of the enduring campaigning group CPRE (originally the Council for
the Preservation of Rural England).
From a public viewpoint there was particular concern about the unplanned 'ribbon
development' which sprang up along main roads out of towns. The traffic generated by
this development, including frontage access and turning movements off the main road,
reduced safety and efficiency and undermined the benefit of highway improvements
which were being made. This concern led to the passing of the Prevention of Ribbon
Development Act of 1935 which banned all building within 220 feet of the centre line of
a classified road without the consent of the Highway Authority. This was the precursor
of a general obligation on local planning authorities to consult highway authorities
about the impact of proposed developments on classified roads.
Control of development generally was provided for under the 1947 Town and Country
Planning Act - another key piece of legislation of the post-war Labour Government.
The essential - and highly controversial - feature of this Act was that it nationalised
development rights. Thereafter property owners only had the right to continue
to occupy land and use buildings as they had done previously. With certain minor
exceptions any change of use, or new or extended buildings could only be undertaken
with the permission of the local council designated as the planning authority. Although
arrangements have fluctuated since for 'compensation' (i.e. for the loss of development
rights) and for 'betterment' (the tax on enhanced property values arising from granting
planning permission), the core system of comprehensive development control has
remained to the present day.
Amongst many people there was - and remains - a view of development control
as essentially a negative activity (i.e. preventing or limiting development, or making it