ConClusion: naTure, hisTory and C onservaTion^185important to remember the beneficial aspects of increased state intervention,
especially in terms of new forms of spatial planning. The 1947 Town and
Country Planning Act made this compulsory over the whole country; it
also, building on earlier initiatives by the London County Council, made
provision for ‘green belts’ around major urban centres.^10 It is difficult to
exaggerate the importance of all this for the English landscape. The 1920s
and 30s had seen a steady expansion of suburbia, and without the new
planning frameworks, the return of peace would certainly have seen the
disappearance of further extensive tracts of countryside under various forms
of low-density sprawl. The National Parks and Access to the Countryside
Act of 1949, moreover, allowed for the designation and management of
National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and National Nature
Reserves, thus preserving some key areas of conservation significance from
the wider environmental crisis.^11
All this said, there is no denying that the second half of the twentieth
century, and especially the period up to c.1980, was an appalling time for
wildlife. The numbers of mammals, birds and invertebrates present in the
countryside fell steeply; habitats rich in native flora were lost at an awesome
rate. Many invertebrates were killed off by the application of pesticides,
while birds and mammals suffered as the amounts of both shelter, and food,
available in the wild declined dramatically. Even the new modes of spatial
planning, and the enthusiasm for nature reserves, SSSIs and National Parks,
had their downsides. The designation of certain areas as ‘special’ carried with
it the implication that undesignated ones were not, while tighter controls
on the spread of suburban sprawl increased the density of housing and
factories within areas zoned for development, posing an increasing threat to
the gardens and derelict industrial land, suburban farms and smallholdings,
where a higher and higher proportion of the nation’s wildlife was now to be
found. By the start of the twenty-first century, the majority of developments
were on ‘brown field’ rather than on ‘green field’ sites.^12 Moreover, the new
ideas of spatial planning did not always serve to preserve the countryside,
for they also led to the appearance of government-sponsored New Towns
in the area around London and – in attempts to fuel economic growth –
elsewhere. Indeed, as the population continued to increase the total area
of built-up land in England grew by around 27 per cent between 1951 and
2000, so that it now covered around a tenth of the total land area.^13
It is true, of course, that the last decades of the century saw the institution
of further measure to reverse the onslaught on wildlife. The 1981 Wildlife and
Countryside Act provided additional protection for SSSIs and more generally
for a range of native species, while the 1997 Hedgerows Regulations made
it harder to remove hedges. The 1980s saw the establishment of the county
Farming and Wildlife Advisory Groups, and the 1990s the development
of Biodiversity Action Plans.^14 Of particular importance were the various
agro-environment schemes which were developed from the 1980s, and
the associated proactive role of English Nature, subsequently Natural