SAVING THE COUNTRYSIDE
WITH general exhortations upon this subject we may assume our readers to be sufficiently familiar. It is one in which public action has lagged far behind all the best public opinion, and is still permitting irreparable mischiefs to be needlessly c5mmitted. Nevertheless, in sporadic instances' quite effective steps are being taken ; and if sufficient attention be drawn to them, their exam- ple may bear wider fruit.
Twa-such instances are furnished today from within the county of Surrey. The first is the policy of its County Council towards the evil of ribbon development. Surrey has suffered some very bad growths of this, AS anyone who has travelled along the Kingston by-pass must be aware. But the lesson has not been lost. The new Guildford and Godalming by-pass shows, within the same county, how ribbon development, at least along new roads, may be prevented. The Council has there brought into play two powers acquired under a private Act. By one of them it prohibits building within 200 feet of the road. By another it prohibits the owners of abutting land from making an access in any form from their land to the road. The last has long seemed to many a peculiarly just and desirable power. If A buys part of B's land and erects a fence between what he has bought and what he has not, Bhas no right to cross that fence on to A's land, let alone to make a gateway in it and drive vehicles through. Why should he automatically acquire such a right just because A happens to be a county council and to be using his purchase to construct an arterial road ? If A were a railway company, making a railroad, he would not. And the sooner we realize that the analogy of the arterial road ought rather to be with the rail-track than with the street, the faster we shall progress towards eliminating accidents.
These powers, which the Surrey County Council obtained under its private Act, have also been taken by Essex and Middlesex, and presumably would not be denied to any other Council that applied for them. But why should 46 separate bodies be each put to so much trouble and expense ? Has not the stage clearly been reached when the Ministries of Health and Transport should step in with a general enabling Bill to confer the powers on all County Councils alike ? Presumably they would couple with them the very • useful power, which Surrey and EsSex have Mao obtained, to purchase land on either side of a specific road up to a distance of 220 yards from its centre. Mr. Barry Parker, who is chairman of the Town Planning and Housing Committee of the Royal Institute of British Architects, regards this as generally the more advantageous power to use in such cases. Meantime, there seems no doubt that Surrey under its special Act is distinctly better off than other counties under the general Town and Country Planning Act passed two years ago.
The other example from Surrey is that of the scheme to preserve unspoiled a block of about 5,600 acres, which includes Leith Hill. It is an area of nearly nine square miles ; and the essence of the plan is not to make it a great public park, not to transfer it to public ownership, not to inctir public expense for upkeep or policing, but simply to en- sure that, while remaining private property, the land shall be kept as it is and rural life shall go on. How has it been arranged ? By a consensus among the majority of the landowners in the first instance, and then by the co-operation of the County Council, which took over the town-planning powers from the Rural District Council to which they primarily belonged. The initiative came from certain landowners, and especially from the agent of one of them, Mr. Jocelyn Bray, who worked long and patiently to get all the owners concerned to agree. A large amount of agreement was obtained, but eventually it was seen that some owners would never come in ; and the majority passed a resolution in favour of getting the whole area declared an " open space " under the Town Planning Act. Certain conditions were also agreed, • one being that each owner will have the right to build one dwelling-house for every 75 acres that he has in the scheme, subject (as now arranged) to plans, elevations, and materials being approved by the town-planning authority.
When things had got thus far, the question of com- pensation arose. Sonic 62 per cent. of the land was put under restriction voluntarily ; but in other instances there were owners who could not afford this and had to be compensated under the Act. Their case was a stumbling-block for the Rural District Council, and necessi- tated bringing the County Council in. There were other stumbling-blocks ; for instance, it was suddenly found that in a critical part of the area building was on the point of starting, and £1,500 was needed to stop it. Fortunately guarantors were quickly forthcoming, and later the money was found by the public, the last £500 being granted by the Pilgrim Trustees. Thus the scheme was carried to success, and generations unborn may benefit by it. For not only does it preserve for all time a beautiful piece of rural England, to which the public by footpaths and bridle-ways have ample access. It also sets an example which might well be widely followed elsewhere.
What have been the essential features of the Leith Hill scheMe ? First, that it was started in time, though only just in time. Post-War buildings had not yet been planted in the conspicuous positions, where one eyesore may wreck a landscape. Transactions had not yet gone through on a large scale, which made it necessary for the speculative builder, if his hand were to be stayed, to be bought out at enormous prices. Secondly, a body of landowners took the initiative and cleared the way for the public scheme. No doubt this may always prove difficult, unless some energetic individual turns up to push through the executive work. Still, there are inducements to landowners in the situation itself. By " sterilizing " land they lower its assessment for Death .Duties. And since only part of a large estate can be built on, it is worth its owner's while to decide which that part shall be and to riliz "stee" the other—the more so, since, if he can persuade neighbouring landowners to co-operate, they may so arrange the " sterilizing " of a conjoint area as to improve the building value of areas round it. Com- pensation will always present difficulties, and may usually necessitate bringing in the County Council. For all that the thing is practicable, and landowners elsewhere should at once turn their minds to it. Not only is it much cheaper for the public than ransoming a few acres here and there at vast expense and handing them over to the National Trust, but its result is a more satisfactory one, It does not isolate a " beauty-spot," but enables a sub- stantial section of British countryside to continue its traditional existence, of which its beauty is the natural outcome: Meanwhile, we cannot refrain from paying a certain tribute of admiration to the Surrey County Council, whose enlightened preservation of amenities is by no means confined to the instances which we have discussed, but is ramifying out in many other important directions within its county. Nor should we exaggerate what it has powers to do. For instance, the prevention of ribbon development along existing (as distinct from new) roads still awaits the action of the Minister of Health.
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