The 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, enacted by the postwar Labour government, in effect nationalised the right to develop land in England and Wales: development value was vested in the state and almost every change of use or new building required planning permission. Decisions were to be made by local authorities against statutory development plans they were obliged to prepare. The Act consolidated a patchwork of earlier, weaker measures into a single comprehensive system. Compensation and betterment were handled through a central fund rather than left to landowners.
It became the constitutional foundation of the modern British planning system, establishing the discretionary, plan-led control of land that still governs development today. By separating the right to develop from land ownership, it gave the state decisive leverage over urban form, density and the location of growth.
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