Planning through conflict: competing approaches in the preparation of Sheffield's post-war reconstruction plan

Abstract

This article describes the breakdown in relations between local-authority Technical Officers working on Sheffield's reconstruction scheme in 1943. As a consequence of the dispute, an approach that prioritized spatial experience was dropped in favour of an engineering-based approach, in which spatial qualities were disregarded. Factors that led to this outcome include Government sanctioned design guidance on traffic engineering and zoning, and the type of education planners received. The dispute is indicative of wider trends in urban planning in Britain during this period.

Keywords:

• planning history
• Sheffield
• post-war reconstruction
• 1940s
• Herbert Manzoni
• John Collie
• Clifford Craven

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Professor Stephen Ward for his help with obtaining archival material.

Notes

“Sheffield Council Approves Civic Centre Plan,” Sheffield Telegraph, July 8, 1937, 2.

See, for example, Essex and Brayshay, “Vision, Vested Interest and Pragmatism,” 417–41; Jones, “‘…A Fairer And Nobler City’,” 301–16.

See, for example, Larkham and Pendlebury, “Reconstruction Planning and the Small Town,” 291–321; Larkham, “Rebuilding the Industrial Town,” 388–409.

Wolverhampton, for example, see Larkham, “Rebuilding the Industrial Town,” 392.

Plymouth, for example, see Essex and Brayshay, “Vision, Vested Interest and Pragmatism,” 423.

Southampton, for example, see Hasegawa, Replanning the Blitzed City Centre, 50.

Hasegawa, “The Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction,” 158–9.

Hasegawa, Replanning the Blitzed City Centre; Hasegawa, “Governments, Consultants and Expert Bodies in the Physical Reconstruction,” 121–44; Hasegawa, “The Reconstruction of Portsmouth in the 1940s,” 45–62; Campbell, “Paper Dream City/Modern Monument,” 121–44.

See notes 2 and 3, and:Hubbard, Faire, and Lilley, “Contesting the Modern City,” 377–97; Bartram and Shobrook, “Body Beautiful,” 119–35.

Gold, The Experience of Modernism; Hasegawa, “Radical Reconstruction in 1940s Britain”; Larkham, “Selling the Future City”; Cherry, The Evolution of British Town Planning; Esher, A Broken Wave, 194–216; Meller, Towns, Plans and Society in Modern Britain; Ravetz, Remaking Cities; Ward, Planning the Twentieth-Century City; Ward, Planning and Urban Change.

Hass-Klau, The Pedestrian and City Traffic.

Trancik, Finding Lost Space, 6–7.

Ibid.; Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Pendlebury, “Planning the Historic City,” 371–93; Pendlebury, “Reconciling History with Modernity,” 331–48.

Marshall, “Town Planning in Sheffield,” 25–6.

Esher, Broken Wave, 198.

Marshall, “Town Planning in Sheffield,” 22.

Abercrombie and Mattocks, Sheffield – A Civic Survey.

Cherry, Evolution of British Town Planning, 98.

Minutes of the Highways and Sewerage Committee, January 19, 1934, CA475(1), Sheffield City Archives.

Sheffield City Council, “Minutes of the Council,” June 3, 1936, “Minutes of the Council,” Sheffield Local Studies Library [hereafter cited as City Council, Minutes].

Special Committee re Town Planning and Civic Centres, “First Report,” June 19, 1936, “Minutes of the Council,” Sheffield Local Studies Library [hereafter cited as Special Committee, Report].

Special Committee, “Third Report,” August 28, 1936; Lewis, “A History of Sheffield's Central Area Planning Schemes,” 183–4.

Special Committee, “Second Report,” July 31, 1936.

Minutes of the Special Committee re Town Planning and Civic Centres, November 21, 1938, CA674(54), Sheffield City Archives. [hereafter cited as CA674(54)]

See, for example, Special Committee, “Seventh Report,” June 4, 1937; Special Committee, Minutes, May 20, 1938, CA674(54); Special Committee, “Fourteenth Report,” May 24, 1938.

“How Sheffield's New Law Courts Will Look,” Sheffield Telegraph, May 25, 1938, 36–7.

Special Committee, Minutes, November 23, 1942, CA674(54).

City Council, Minutes, September 6, 1939.

City Council, Minutes, November 9, 1939.

Planning Officer in letter to City Engineer, November 10, 1939, City Engineer's Files, CA655(1), Sheffield City Archives [hereafter cited as CA655(1)].

Special Committee, “Eighteenth Report,” April 21, 1941.

Ibid.

Special Committee, Minutes, December 18, 1939, CA674(54).

See, for example, Special Committee, Minutes, April 15, 1940 and July 15, 1940, CA674(54); Special Committee, “Eighteenth Report,” April 21, 1941, point 9.

Ward, Planning and Urban Change, 76.

Philip Healy, “Sheffield at War,” 243–5.

Letter from City Engineer to Town Clerk, December 31, 1940, City Engineer's Files, CA655(16), Sheffield City Archives [hereafter cited as CA655(16)].

Ward, Planning and Urban Change, 78–9.

Ibid., 81; Cherry, Evolution of British Town Planning, 122.

Ward, Planning and Urban Change, 80; John Reith, Into the Wind.

Stuart, The Reith Diaries, 266, 269; Reith, Into the Wind, 405, 407–8; Cullingworth, Environmental Planning 1939–1969, 53.

Reith, Into the Wind, 424.

Ibid., 428.

Cherry, Evolution of British Town Planning, 122; Stuart, The Reith Diaries, 234–5.

Special Committee, Minutes, March 17, 1941, CA674(54).

Special Committee, “Eighteenth Report,” April 21, 1941.

Ibid.; “Sheffield Wants Money to Build Anew,” Sheffield Telegraph, April 17, 1941, 3.

Special Committee, “Eighteenth Report,” April 21, 1941; Craven was initially demobilised for 6 months only, but full demobilisation followed in September. See: Special Committee, Minutes, September 15, 1941, CA674(54).

“Raids Worry Planners, but 1939 Sheffield Plan still Valid,” Sheffield Telegraph, February 17, 1942, 3.

Town Planning Assembly, “Interim Report,” September 18, 1941, CA655(16).

Memo to the City Engineer from one of his staff, June 30, 1941, CA655(16).

Special Committee, “Twenty-Second Report,” December 1941.

City Council, Minutes, November 10, 1941.

Town Clerk in letter to members of the Special Sub-Committee on Review of Planning,  March 20, 1942, CA674(54); Special Committee, Minutes, March 16, 1942, CA674(54).

Special Committee, Minutes, May 19, 1941, CA674(54).

Handwritten notes on the first meeting of the Special Sub-Committee on Review of Planning, March 27, 1942, CA674(54).

See, for example, reference to the Planning Officer's Scheme “B” in letter from Town Clerk to City Engineer, June 1, 1942, CA655(1); Sketch plan of the diagonal road scheme, drawn by Planning Officer, June 19, 1942, City Engineer's Files, CA655(6), Sheffield City Archives.

“City of Sheffield – Proposed Revision of the Sheffield (Central) Planning Scheme,” October 19, 1942, CA674(54).

Harman and Minnis, Sheffield – Pevsner Architectural Guides, 135–6.

City Architect in “City of Sheffield – Proposed Revision of the Sheffield (Central) Planning Scheme,” October 19, 1942, CA674(54).

“Plans Accepted,” Sheffield Telegraph, December 3, 1942, 3.

Ibid.

Planning Officer in “City of Sheffield – Proposed Revision of the Sheffield (Central) Planning Scheme,” October 19, 1942, CA674(54).

“Plans Accepted,” Sheffield Telegraph, December 3, 1942, 3.

Welsh, “Suggested Master Plan for New City Centre,” Sheffield Star, December 11, 1942, 2; “Planners Opposed to Council's Civic Centre Scheme,” Sheffield Telegraph, December 15, 1942, 3.

City Council, Minutes, December 2, 1942.

“Plans Accepted,” Sheffield Telegraph, December 3, 1942, 3.

City Engineer in letter to Town Clerk, July 3, 1942, CA655(1); City Engineer's report, June 30, 1942, City Engineer's Files, CA655(4), Sheffield City Archives [hereafter cited as CA655(4)].

Town Clerk in letter to City Engineer, July 6, 1942, CA655(1).

City Engineer in letter to Town Clerk, July 8, 1942, CA655(1).

Town Clerk in letter to City Engineer, July 8, 1942, CA655(1).

Special Committee, Minutes, November 23, 1942, CA674(54).

Ibid.

Minutes of the Special Sub-Committee on Review of Planning, March 29, 1943, CA674(54).

City Engineer in minority report to Special Sub-Committee on Review of Planning, May 7, 1943, CA655(4).

Special Committee, Minutes, July 21, 1943, CA674(54).

City Engineer, “Proposed Inclusion of Bridge over Castlegate – Bridge Street in the Scheme for a New Street from Wicker to Angel Street,” September 15, 1943, CA655(4).

“Observations of the Planning Officer and Consultant on the Construction of a New Road from the Wicker to Angel Street Including the Bridging Over of Castlegate and Bridge Street,” October 27, 1943, CA674(54).

Ibid.

Report of the Special Sub-Committee on Review of Planning, November 13, 1943, City Engineer's Files, CA655(2), Sheffield City Archives [hereafter cited as CA655(2)].

Report of the Special Sub-Committee on Review of Planning, November 8, 1943, CA674(54).

Report of the Special Sub-Committee on Review of Planning, November 13, 1943, CA655(2).

Special Sub-Committee on Review of Planning, Minutes,  December 3, 1943, CA674(54).

Town Clerk in Memorandum, December 8, 1943, CA655(2).

Special Committee, “Fourteenth Report,” May 24, 1938.

Report of the Special Sub-Committee on Review of Planning, November 8, 1943, CA674(54).

Ibid.; For confirmation of City Engineer's submission see letter from City Engineer to Town Clerk, February 1, 1944, CA655(2).

Minutes of the Special Sub-Committee on Review of Planning, May 20, 1944, CA655(2).

Minutes of the Special Committee re Town Planning and Civic Centres, June 12, 1944, CA655(2).

Minutes of the Special Sub-Committee on Review of Planning, May 20, 1944, CA655(2).

“Manzoni Plan Approved in Principle,” Sheffield Telegraph, June 8, 1944, 3.

“New Centre to end Sheffield's ‘Inferiority Complex’,” Sheffield Telegraph, December 7, 1944, 3.

By June 1944, Craven was described as “the former Planning Officer,” see: Special Committee, Minutes, June 12, 1944, CA674(54); An article in the Sheffield Telegraph around this time also reports Craven as having departed for Scotland, see “Current Topics,” Sheffield Telegraph, July 18, 1944, 2.; For reports of Planning Officer's resignation see: Town Planning Committee, August 4, 1944, Minutes of the Council, Sheffield Local Studies Library [hereafter cited as Town Planning Committee, Minutes].

Town Planning Institute, Register of Members.

Town Planning Committee, Minutes, August 4, 1944.

City Engineer in Memorandum, August 25, 1944, CA655(2).

Sheffield, South Yorkshire and District Society of Architects and Surveyors, “Evaluation on the ‘M’ or Manzoni Scheme with Mr. Manzoni's Observations Thereon,” July 1, 1944, CA655(2).

“Observations and Comments of the City Engineer on Proposed Plan and Report Submitted by the Town Planning Committee of the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce and of the Retailers’ Advisory Committee on Town Planning,” November 15, 1944, CA655(1).

See for example City Engineer in Memorandum, October 17, 1944, CA655(2).

Divisional Road Engineer of the Ministry of War Transport in letter to City Engineer, November 4, 1944, CA655(2).

City Council, Minutes, December 6, 1944.

H. Manzoni in letter, December 14, 1944, CA655(2).

Town Planning Committee, Minutes, February 12, 1945.

Town Planning Committee, Minutes, March 26, 1945.

Town Planning Committee, Minutes, August 13, 1945.

Sheffield (UK), Town Planning Committee, Sheffield Replanned.

City Architect in “City of Sheffield – Proposed Revision of the Sheffield (Central) Planning Scheme,” October 19, 1942, City Archives, CA674(54).

Ibid.

Town Planning Committee, Sheffield Replanned, 36.

Webb and Webb, English Local Government, 240.

Hass-Klau, Pedestrian and City Traffic, 44.

Ibid., 40.

Town Planning Committee, Sheffield Replanned, 36.

Hass-Klau, Pedestrian and City Traffic, 38, 40.

See summary of the guidance issued by the department in Ministry of War Transport, Memorandum on the Layout, 3; Also see Ministry of Transport, Notes on the Lay-Out. The role of H. Alker Tripp in developing modern traffic engineering techniques, as described by writers such as Colin Buchanan, is possibly overplayed given that ideas such as the segregation of different types of traffic featured in documents published by the Ministry of Transport and Ministry of Health throughout the 1930s. See Buchanan, Mixed Blessing, 150–3.

Town Planning Committee, Sheffield Replanned, 38.

Ministry of Transport, Memorandum on the Lay-out, 13.

Tasker, “Superelevation,” 1135; Criswell, “Simple Treatment of Superelevation,” 820.

Batson, Roads – Their Alignment, Layout and Construction, 41.

Criswell, “Simple Treatment of Superelevation,” 826.

Cherry, Evolution of British Town Planning, 25.

City Engineer's account of meeting with Mr Knight of the Ministry of Transport, July 15, 1937, City Engineer's Files, CA655(3), Sheffield City Archives.

Cameron, “Traffic Problems,” 41.

Alderman Jackson's response to Alderman Blanchard's observation, in “Plans Accepted,” Sheffield Telegraph, December 3, 1942, 3.

Ministry of Health, Town and Country Planning.

Town Planning Committee, Sheffield Replanned, 23–26.

Ibid., 27–35.

Ibid., 48–64.

Ministry of Health, Town and Country Planning; and Ministry of Health, Town and Country Planning: Extracts from the Annual Report of the Ministry of Health.

Town Planning Committee, Sheffield Replanned, 18–19.

Cherry, Evolution of British Town Planning, 219–20.

City Engineer in Memorandum, August 25, 1944, CA655(2).

Institute of Municipal and County Engineers – Handbook 1938–39; Town Planning Institute, Register of Members.

Institute of Municipal and County Engineers – Handbook 1938–39, 285–6.

Ibid., 287–91; Institute of Municipal and County Engineers – Handbook 1931–32, 215.

Esher, Broken Wave, 198.

Smith, A History of the County Surveyors' Society, 122.

Clunie, “Obituary–William George Davies, F.R.I.B.A.,” SSAS + SUAS Magazine, No.4, December 1967.

Pendlebury, “Reconciling History with Modernity,” 334, 338.

Parr, Plan – Newcastle upon Tyne 1945, 50.