Records of the Housing and Planning Inspectorate

Division within HLG

1943-1979

Records of public inquiries and of planning appeals.

Appeals files are in HLG 129; records of the Inquiry into the Greater London Development Plan are in HLG 159; records of the Hatfield Gale Damage Public Local Inquiry are in HLG 163.

Records of the Public Local Inquiry into the proposed development of Gatwick Airport are in HLG 165

Public Record(s)

English

• Department of the Environment, Planning Inspectorate, 1970-1997
• Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Housing and Planning Inspectorate, 1964-1970

3 series

Open unless otherwise stated

Topics

Air transport

Housing

Planning (Land and Property)

Local Government

The ancestry of the Inspectorate goes back to the Housing, Town Planning etc Act 1909 when a small body of inspectors was established for conducting public inquiries. For many years the Planning Inspectorate was a co-existent part of the Housing Inspectorate of the Ministry of Health but at the end of the Second World War the two were split with the formation of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning. The two Inspectorates came together again under one roof with the formation of the Ministry of Local Government and Planning (later the Ministry of Housing and Local Government).

The housing and planning inspectors of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government conducted public and local inquiries into matters arising from the Town and Country Planning, Housing, Acquisition of Land, New Towns and other acts. The main burden of their work was concerned with appeals against decisions of local planning authorities and with the approval of development plans. The Town and Country Planning Act 1968 increased the importance of the inspectorate by allowing them to decide many planning appeals transferred to them by the minister in an attempt to streamline the appeal process.