Scott revisited: Post-war agriculture, planning and the British countryside

The report of the Scott Committee on Land Utilisation in Rural Areas, in August 1942, constituted the first comprehensive review of rural issues in England and Wales. Never before had agriculture and land-use planning been considered in such an integrated, yet detailed, manner. Through contemporary archival evidence, the paper appraises the circumstances in which the Committee was convened, the preoccupations brought to its deliberations by the Chairman, Stamp and Dennison, and the manner in which Government departments, and most obviously the Ministry of Agriculture, sought to manipulate both the Committee's appointment and findings to their own advantage.