Tottenham to Wisbech-
There are occasions when the urge to large-scale planning coincides with common sense, realism and enlightenment. Such coincidences are much rarer than the planners usually admit, but the Boroughs of Tottenham and Wisbech seem to have struck one of them. Wisbech has plenty of space and not enough people ; plenty of work, particu- larly at harvest times, but not enough part-time workers ready to take a hand at those times ; plenty of small industries dependent on agriculture, but not enough of the miscellaneous kind necessary to ensure stability. The facilities and needs of Tottenham are precisely complementary to these. It has more people than houses—or even spaces on which to build houses—a great diversity of industry, and no doubt plenty of able-bodied women, ready to undertake seasonal labour. The Tottenham Borough Council would be willing both to build houses at Wisbech and to try to persuade industries to transfer. It is highly likely that it could find 5,000 people willing to move. The Wisbech Borough Council likes the idea. The plan seems to have made itself. But of course the decencies' of the case must be observed. The Board of Trade and the Ministry of Health must be consulted. It may well be discovered later that other Government Departments have to be consulted too. It would hardly be seemly for the plan to go through before the central planners had had an opportunity to stop it.
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