SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
J. W. M. THOMPSON
There is a touch of sheer comedy about the appearance of the Skeffington Committee's report on 'public participation in planning' on the very heels of the Redcliffe-Maud report, which, whatever its other qualities may be, carries with it the unmistakeable threat of a powerfully increased sense of public remoteness from the processes of local government. It just shows, I suppose, the danger of chasing two different, and conflicting, vogue-ideas at the same time. Mr Arthur Skeffington's worthy committee was set up last year in honour of the newish vogue-word 'participation'; Lord Redcliffe- Maud's more heavily armed band was mustered rather earlier to do obeisance to the longer-established vogue-word 'effic- iency'. In the result, we have the diverting spectacle of Redcliffe-Maud wiping out local authorities galore in favour of huge supercouncils, while Skeffington pleads earnestly for small-scale local public in- volvement in planning matters, with new bodies called 'community forums' being created to discuss and influence planning proposals. And both documents are broadly acceptable to the Government, a state of affairs suggesting a ministerial posture full of interesting athletic possibilities.
When it argues for greater publicity about local plans before decisions are made, the Skeffington Committee is certainly on strong ground, for if there is one thing which un- failingly stirs up resentment in this sphere it is the feeling that major changes are hatched in secret and then sprung upon the people who will have to endure them. (Vide the Stansted affair.) But the tradi- tional, democratic form of 'participation' is to have such matters settled by elected representatives answerable to the voters; and one sure result of the Redcliffe-Maud approach would be the handing over of a great part of local government to non- elective officials. The number of elected councillors actually empowered to do any- thing would be reduced to a mere rump, with each of them 'representing' a greatly increased number of people and a larger area. It will sorely strain the Skeffington panacea of better public relations to over- come the inescapable drive against 'partici- pation' which that represents.
Towards deteriorationism
One of the novelist Peacock's most enjoy- able creations is Mr Escot, the Deteriorat- ionist. Mr Escot's philosphy is uniformly lugubrious, resting upon his conviction that deterioration, not progress, is the in- evitable course of human affairs, that history is a process of exchanging the bad for the worse. If Peacock were satirising today's intellectual attitudes he would probably not choose so comprehensive a pessimism to tease; but it occurs to me that he might instead have had some fun with those who might be termed environ- mental deteriorationists. (The fact that he was very much an environmental de- teriorationist himself would not have stopped him.) There is something in the writings of those who agitate about man's tendency to ruin his own surroundings which is sure to provoke a certain defensive mockery in response: Their picture of a possible future, wholly urbanised, motor- ised. choked with excess millions of popu- lation and tainted by pollution of all kinds —this is so grim that it is soothing to dis- miss it all as over-heated fantasy. Hence brisk, no-nonsense administrators grow impatient with 'moans' about the disappear- ance of the countryside; hence no political party has thought it profitable to take up the matter seriously.
But the moaners carry on untiringly, I'm glad to say; and unless one subscribes fully to Mr Escot's philosophy one can even recognise signs that some people are begin- ning to listen. I shall be surprised, for instance, if a very powerful moan this week doesn't attract some attention. It is a first-class Pelican book by John Barr called Derelict Britain and it examines that large part of the country, equivalent in total area to a county larger than Huntingdon, which has been made useless by a century of industrial plundering. Mr Barr argues cogently for an enlightened policy of re- claiming this huge wasteland of slagheaps and squalor. It seems blindingly sensible, in a small island which will soon have to hold millions more people than are already squeezed into it, and where the amount of man-made desert grows rapidly. But the question is whether people with power to do something about it will listen. 'Our environment is sinking fast into a welter of disamenities.' Dr E. J. Mishan has observed 'yet the most vocal part of the community cannot raise their eyes from the trade fig- ures to remark the painful event.'
Crime and punishment
Sentences passed upon motoring offenders are not usually criticised on grounds of excessive leniency, but the case of a hit- and-run driver dealt with by Judge Brodrick at the Old Bailey is a remarkable exception. The facts are enough to make the ordinary fallible but law-abiding road user's blood run cold. The convicted man had never passed a driving test; the old car he was driving carried no `L' plates and it was unlicensed, uninsured, untested and had defective tyres. He had been overtaking at speed in a London street when the car killed a pedestrian, whereupon the driver quickly fled the scene. Subsequently he admitted to having drunk five pints of shandy that night. All in all it would be hard to put together a more shocking cata- logue of anti-social behaviour by a motorist.
For this list of offences the man received a paltry fine of £75, plus £75 costs and a six year disqualification. The ordinary person can only feel bewilderment at the scale of values implied; on this basis, the ordinary motoring offender might reason- ably go scot free every time. Clearly some attempt to regularise the penalties in these cases is urgently needed.
Villeiny afoot
'The Secretary of State for Scotland and the Lord Advocate will introduce a White Paper ... which will propose the altera- tion of the feudal system ... ' (Announce- ment from the Scottish Office, 22 July 1969)
Feudal system? These politicians won't leave a single thing alone. I think I'd better go away on holiday now, before some of them start tinkering with new penal clauses for, say, the Statute of Labourers....
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