TOWN PLANNING

Evening Star, Issue 23423, 14 November 1939, Page 3

TOWN PLANNING

MASTER SCHEME FOR LONDON ELIMINATING OVER-CROWDING PROFITING FROM PAST MISTAKES The purpose of town planning is to apply a sense of proportion to the living and working arrangements of communities, so far as those arrangements find expression in land and buildings. The larger the community the more difficult it is, as a rule—but also the more desirable—to ensure that its development shall be well ordered. London is not only the greatest city, it is perhaps the most complex of all urban areas. Till now its growth has been haphazard. Nor is it to be expected that town planning will accomplish any sudden and dramatic change in the aspect of London. Tho present town planning laws confer only a very limited power to interfere with things as they are. Their function is to prevent past and present mistakes being repeated, whenever development or redevelopment is carried out in future. Some of those mistakes are only too evident, Houses have been crowded together to yield their owners as high a return as possible. Factories have been erected to a height decided without regard to light and air for surrounding buildings. The master plan for London on which the London County Council is now engaged will at least "check the repetition, of such lapses from the policy of the good neighbour. AN IMPORTANT ADVANCE. The L.C.C. derives its town-planning ( powers from a series of measures beginning with tho Housing and Town Planning Act of 1909. The most recent legislation, the Town and Country Planning Act, 1932, marked a most important advance by extending planning to all kinds of land, including built-up areas, whereas previous legislation had applied only to land in course of development which appeared likely to be used for building. The 1932 Act mad© it possible, for the first time, to town-plan all London. The council may claim to have made what use it could of the restricted opportunities for action which presented" themselves before the 1932 Act became law. A third of the County of London had been town-planned under earlier legislation. Of some 18 resolutions thus prepared by the L.C.C. two schemes have come into force. The earliest, a very small one, covering 20 acres in Streatham, has succeeded in its object of extending Streatham Common and preserving a neighbouring amenitv. The other scheme, now in operation, covers 900 acres in Highgate and Hampstead. Intended to safeguard the attractions of the Heath, Ken Wood, and Parliament Hill, it permits the erection of only, with varying densities, except with the consent of the council. A planning problem neculiar to London has been solved by the London Squares Preservation Act, 1931. which the council promoted. Its effect is to forbid any building on the garden surface of over 400 London squares. ONE COMPLETE PLAN. All the earlier town-planning schemes will be incorporated in the plan which the L.C.C. is now preparing for the County of London. It will cover the whole area of the county except for the Inner and Middle Temples and Lincoln’s Inn, which have been excluded by the Minister of Health from town-planning control, and the City of London, which is engaged on its own scheme. The effect of the schemes will be to zone London on three principles—use. density, aud height and cover. Land which it is proposed to use as open spaces, public or private, is shown on the maps as reserved for those purposes. Other land is zoned according to use, according to density of housing, and according to the permitted height of buildings, and the proportion of plot the buildings may cover.