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CENTRAL GOVERNMENT AND TOWN-CENTRE REDEVELOPMENT IN BRITAIN, 1959–1966*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2015

OTTO SAUMAREZ SMITH
OTTO SAUMAREZ SMITH*
Affiliation:
Lincoln College, Oxford
*
Lincoln College, Oxford, ox1 3dr[email protected]
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Abstract

This article looks at central government's role, focusing on the parliamentary terms 1959–64 and 1964–6, in directing the way in which local authorities enacted the central area redevelopment schemes of the 1960s. The first two sections review the substantial but little-studied literature produced across the political spectrum about central area urban renewal in the period 1959–64. Section III uses the Joint Urban Planning Group, a group set up within the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, as a case-study to show how modernist approaches to redevelopment became operative within a government department. The Joint Urban Planning Group has received no attention from historians. Section IV discusses the fate of these ideas during Labour's first term after the 1964 election.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 217 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

My thanks to Phil Withington and the anonymous reviewers for the Historical Journal for their comments and suggestions. I would like to thank Peter Mandler for steering me towards the subject, and for his advice at many stages during the writing process. I am very grateful for feedback on written drafts from Nick Bullock, Peter Hennessey, Simon Gunn, Alan Powers, John Davis, Alistair Fair, Lucian Robinson, Richard Butler, and Peter Ruback. Also warm thanks are due to the organizers and attendees of the Transformation of Urban Britain since 1945 conference at the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester, where I benefited from giving a section of this article. This project was completed during research for my Ph.D. at St John's College, Cambridge, funded by the Kemp Scholarship.

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