Catalogue description Records of the Housing and Planning Inspectorate

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.