The Development of Environmental Politics in Inter-War and Post-War Britain Paul David Sims Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen Mary, University of London 2016 1 Statement of Originality I, Paul David Sims, confirm that the research included within this thesis is my own work or that where it has been carried out in collaboration with, or supported by others, that this is duly acknowledged below and my contribution indicated. Previously published material is also acknowledged below. I attest that I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge break any UK law, infringe any third party’s copyright or other Intellectual Property Right, or contain any confidential material. I accept that the College has the right to use plagiarism detection software to check the electronic version of the thesis. I confirm that this thesis has not been previously submitted for the award of a degree by this or any other university. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. Signature: Paul David Sims Date: 28 April 2016 2 Abstract Beginning in the inter-war years and ending in the early 1970s, this thesis explains how and why the ‘environment’ came to play a significant role in mainstream British politics. During this period, a range of rural and urban problems became conceptualised as ‘environmental’, and governments came to understand their responsibilities not simply in terms of providing basic standards of public health, but also in terms of improving the broader ‘quality of life’ of all citizens. Chapter two explores rural preservation in the inter-war period, and the passage of town and country planning and National Parks legislation in the 1940s. Chapter three examines air pollution, focusing on the London smog of 1952 and the passage of the 1956 Clean Air Act. Chapter four explores Britain’s early nuclear power programme, and shifting attitudes towards modernisation, risk and the countryside in the 1950s and 1960s. Chapter five examines the growth of political interest in ‘environmental’ problems during the 1960s, and the eventual formation of the Department of the Environment in 1970. Finally, chapter six focuses upon the challenge of traffic in towns, exploring proposals for the construction of a motorway network in London in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The thesis concludes that the ‘environment’ was established as a field of public policy by the early 1970s. Whereas many existing accounts have emphasised the importance of radical critiques of human interaction with the environment, it is the contention of this thesis that environmental politics in Britain developed in the political mainstream, taking shape amid efforts to address new challenges of governance. The rejection of modernity, in the form of industrialisation, urban life, consumer culture and economic growth, was never more than a minority position within British politics, and successful arguments for environmental protection had to be framed in line with dominant social and economic priorities. 3 Acknowledgements I am extremely grateful to my supervisors, Helen McCarthy and Adam Fagan, for all their advice and support over the last three years. Thanks, too, to Nick Beech for his thoughts and suggestions on the manuscript. I am also grateful to Robert Saunders and Tim Bale for the teaching opportunities and valuable advice given to me during my time as a PhD student, and to the students in my seminar groups for helping me to develop my ideas on twentieth- century British history. Thanks, finally, to my wife Kate and all my family for their patience and support. 4 Table of Contents List of Abbreviations 6 1) Introduction 7 2) National Parks and Town and Country Planning 54 3) Atmospheric Pollution and the 1956 Clean Air Act 96 4) Nuclear Power and the Preservation of the Countryside 142 5) The Creation of the Department of the Environment 176 6) Urban Motorways and the Greater London Development Plan 224 7) Conclusion 264 Bibliography 294 5 List of Abbreviations AA Automobile Association BMAG Blackheath Motorway Action Group BRF British Roads Federation CEGB Central Electricity Generating Board CND Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament CPRE Council for the Preservation of Rural England DOE Department of the Environment FCO Foreign and Commonwealth Office FOE Friends of the Earth GLC Greater London Council GLDP Greater London Development Plan IMCO Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organisation LMAG London Motorway Action Group MHLG Ministry of Housing and Local Government MOH Ministry of Health NFU National Farmers’ Union NGO Non-Governmental Organisation NSAS National Smoke Abatement Society RAC Royal Automobile Club RIBA Royal Institute of British Architects RSPB Royal Society for the Protection of Birds UKAEA United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority UN United Nations YHA Youth Hostels Association 6 Chapter One Introduction In the twenty-first century, the ‘environment’ is a well-established sphere of public policy. British governments and political parties may vary in the extent to which they emphasise their ‘green’ credentials, and the adequacy and sincerity of their proposals may certainly be contested, but the need to pay lip service to the environment is an undoubted feature of contemporary policy-making. The environment’s political position is underlined by the existence of a large number of environmental non- governmental organisations (NGOs), which, taken together, comprise a significant number of members and supporters. While figures vary, and there is undoubtedly overlap between the memberships of different groups, one estimate has placed the combined number of supporters of environmental organisations in the UK at seven million, a figure that allows for the claim that the ‘environmental movement’ is the second largest mass movement in British history after trade unionism.1 Beginning in the inter-war years and ending in the early 1970s, this thesis explains how and why the ‘environment’ came to play a significant role in mainstream British politics. Phil Macnaghten and John Urry write that before the ‘environment’ could be viewed as an area of political concern, a range of different problems had to come to be regarded as part of ‘the environment’.2 Similarly, in their comparative study of northern Europe and Scandinavia, Andrew Jamison et al note that, in order for the environmental movement and environmental politics to gather pace, ‘the 1 Matthew Hilton, James McKay, Nicholas Crowson and Jean-François Mouhot, The Politics of Expertise: How NGOs Shaped Modern Britain (Oxford, 2013), p. 47; Phil Macnaghten and John Urry, Contested Natures (London, 1998), p. 60 2 Macnaghten and Urry, Contested Natures, p. 21 7 environment had first to be constituted as a meaningful area for … political praxis’.3 This thesis argues that this process took place in Britain during the inter-war and post-war periods, as a range of rural and urban problems of governance became conceptualised as ‘environmental’. It demonstrates how, through the preservation of the countryside, the control of pollution, and efforts to deal with traffic congestion in towns and cities, the state expanded its authority over the environment, while parties on both the left and right increasingly incorporated environmental issues into their political programmes. In part, this process occurred in response to perceived public demand as, in the political context of the welfare state, and in the wider social climate of post-war affluence, governments came to understand their responsibilities not simply in terms of providing basic standards of material security and public health, but also in terms of improving the broader ‘quality of life’ of all citizens. It is important from the outset to define what is meant by the term ‘environmental politics’. The Oxford English Dictionary gives a number of definitions for ‘environment’, and two in particular provide a basis for exploring the historical particularities of the rise of ‘environmental politics’ in Britain. Put simply, ‘environment’ may refer to ‘the area surrounding a place or thing’; in slightly more complex terms, it can mean ‘the natural world or physical surroundings in general, either as a whole or within a particular geographical area, especially as affected by human activity’. It is therefore a matter of surroundings, and for the purpose of politics it relates to the human impact on those surroundings. The existing literature varies on whether ‘environment’ should be seen only to comprise the ‘natural’ environment, with the built environment excluded, but it is the argument of this thesis that ‘environmental politics’ in Britain developed in response to both rural and 3 Andrew Jamison, Ron Eyerman and Jacqueline Cramer, The Making of the New Environmental Consciousness: A Comparative Study of the Environmental Movements in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 4-5 8 urban problems, and as such it is vital to include the built environment. Therefore, throughout this thesis, ‘environmental politics’ will be used to refer to the debate over the impact of human society on the ‘natural’ and built environment, and the attempt to manage that impact through public policy. For much of the period under consideration, the word ‘environment’ was not in common use among political actors, and when it was used it did not necessarily carry the same meaning that it carries in the present day. It is therefore one of the aims of this thesis to trace its growth in use and shift in meaning over time. An ‘environmental revolution’? In much of the existing literature, the development of environmental politics is seen to have occurred from the 1960s onwards. For numerous authors, it was at that time that a large-scale environmental movement emerged, bringing with it a significant challenge to dominant modes of thought concerning the interaction between human societies and their surroundings.