Catalogue description Welsh Office and predecessors: Town and Country Planning Division and predecessors: Registered Files (P and PG Series)

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Details of BD 28
Reference: BD 28
Title: Welsh Office and predecessors: Town and Country Planning Division and predecessors: Registered Files (P and PG Series)
Description:

This series consists of local authority case files in the P series and general and policy files in the PG series.

The files were originally raised in the Welsh Offices of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning and of the Ministry of Local Government and Planning and later the Welsh Office of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. Following the setting up of the Welsh Office after 1964, they passed to the Town and Country Planning Division of the new department.

Under the Town and Country Planning Acts of 1944 and 1947, local planning authorities were required to survey their areas and to prepare and submit development plans. Included in the P series are submissions from all the Welsh county and county borough councils (the local planning authorities). Also included are files dealing with such functions as appeals against refusal to permit development, tree preservation orders, use of land by the armed services and post war housing development. Included in the PG series are files dealing with the setting up and administration of two national parks, the location of industry and the minutes of meetings of various Welsh industrial panels and committees. Also contained are policy and case files relating to the work of the Derelict Land Unit.

In addition to town and country planning matters generally many files concern development plans, the establishment and running of national parks within Wales and the removal of coal tips at Aberfan and elsewhere, following the disaster in 1966. The series includes a number of maps, plans and photographs.

Date: 1940-1993
Arrangement:

The case files are arranged in numerical order of the code number allocated to each authority by the Welsh Office of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. These numbers were allocated alphabetically within each category of local authority (i.e. county councils, county borough councils, etc), in descending hierarchical order. Inconsistencies in the arrangement occur when there has been a change of status or name with no consequential change of code number: e.g. Llwchwr UDC has the number 434 of the former Swansea RDC.

The remainder of the file number indicates the subject with, in some instances, sub-numbers. For example, for P 222/1 206/6/2, Breconshire CC (222), Subject number 1206, Sub-numbers 6 & 2, the Subject number -/1206 indicates 'War Department', and Subject number -/-/6 indicates 'land requirements'

The numbering system of the DLU (Derelict Land Unit) files is the same as the rest of the planning series. Some of the later files carry the suffix DLU. This was to link in with a change in Welsh Office filing policy.

General policy files (PG series) are arranged in numerical order of the number allocated to the subject. The number is the same for each subject as the second component of the case files series numbers. The remainder of the number indicates a sub-division of the subject or is a running number.

Related material:

Similar earlier and contemporary papers are to be found in:

For local authority orders and other documents relating to subordinate legislation in Wales, see BD 20

HLG 71

HLG 79

Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Former reference in its original department: P and PG file series
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Wales Office, 1951-1964

Ministry of Local Government and Planning, Wales Office, 1951-1951

Ministry of Town and Country Planning, Welsh Regional Office, 1943-1951

Welsh Office, Town and Country Planning Division, 1967-1977

Welsh Office, Welsh Affairs Division, 1965-1967

Physical description: 1116 files and flat sheets
Access conditions: Open
Immediate source of acquisition:

From 1984 Welsh Office

Accruals: Series is accruing.
Administrative / biographical background:

The Derelict Land Unit (unique in the United Kingdom) was set up a month after the Aberfan disaster in November 1966. Its aims were to lead, encourage and co-ordinate a programme of reclamation to clear away dangerous derelict sites and restore land to productive and beneficial use. Since many land reclamation schemes were designed to create land for new industry, the functions of reclamation were transferred to the Welsh Development Agency in 1975.

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