The Scott Committee Report

THE reference this Committee was to consider the conditions which should govern building and other constructional development in country areas consistently with the maintenance of agriculture, and in particular the factors affecting the location of industry, having regard economic operation, part-time and seasonal employment, the well-being of rural communities and the preservation of rural amenities . I consider this reference be neutral between the claims of building and agriculture, and be a natural result of the proposals of the Barlow Commission for the dispersal of industry. The Committee has, however, laid chief stress on the agricultural side, the extent of making a definite agricultural policy, which goes far beyond maintenance , a precedent condition of its main proposals. This policy is not argued in relation our national ecoinomy as a whole, and the responsibility for it is placed upon the government. If the government does not adopt such a policy, therefore, a substantial part of the Committee's work is fruitless. The Report therefore is so framed as create a strong pressure of predisposition for an agricultural policy which will keep its proposals practicable, and that extent it steals a march on any further Committee which might be appointed with a definite reference consider the reconstructive aspects of agriculture. The second general aspect of the Report is in its planning proposals. Two members of the Committee have dissented from this part of the Report, as being outside the reference. The Committee wishes have a planning Authority set up, for town and country, but it has itself come conclusions which it clearly intends the planning body accept. If the planning body is free, it may reconsider the detailed recommendations of this Report; if it is be bound by them, it is not free. My interpretation is that the planning body is not be free, and this dilemma arises because the Committee has again gone outside the terms of its reference. No doubt, there is such a thing as tied planning, but this Committee both recommends a flexible supervision over development, which is the best form of planning, and itself furnishes a plan some features of which are indispensable. The Report is written in a most interesting style. The adoption at once of an attitude toward the land and rural life carries the reader forward on a surge of sympathy which is easily understood, for all the vocabulary is in its favour. Perhaps there is a primeval instinct which we readily revert, and which has all the best words on its side

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