Britain: An official handbook > 1956

INDUSTRY
129
Distribution of Industry Act, 1945. The purpose of this Act, and of the Distribu¬
tion of Industry Act, 1950, is to promote the growth of new industry and the
expansion of existing industry in the Development Areas. The main advantages
which these Acts give to Development Areas are that the Board of Trade may build
factories for letting to suitable industries and the Treasury may help by making loans
or grants to undertakings which are unable to secure finance through normal
channels. The Board of Trade factories are built and managed by Industrial Estate
Companies. The directors of these companies are unpaid and are appointed by the
Board of Trade, and their capital is provided from Government sources. The
companies include North-Western Industrial Estates Ltd., North-Eastern Trading
Estates Ltd., Scottish Industrial Estates Ltd., Wales and Monmouthshire Industrial
Estates Ltd., and the West Cumberland Industrial Development Company Ltd.
There are Development Areas in the following parts of England and Wales: the
mining and coastal areas of Northumberland and Durham; West Cumberland;
South Wales and Monmouthshire; Wrexham; South Lancashire; Merseyside; and
North-East Lancashire, which became a Development Area in March 1953. In
Scotland the industrial area in and around the Clyde Valley, the Dundee area, and
part of the Highlands have been scheduled as the Scottish Development Area.
The Government cannot direct a firm to go to any particular area or site. But, in
addition to the special powers in scheduled Development Areas, the Board of Trade
has statutory powers under the Town and Country Planning Acts, i947> t° ensure
that new industrial development throughout Great Britain is carried out consistently
with the proper distribution of industry. A certificate to this effect is necessary
before planning consent may be given by a local planning authority (see p. 358) for
a new industrial building or extension with an area of over 5,000 square feet.
New industrial buildings and extensions of over 5,000 square feet completed in
Great Britain between the beginning of 1945 and the end of 1954 totalled nearly
216 million square feet. Of this total, 33 per cent was in the Development Areas
which have, by contrast, 18 per cent of the country’s insured workers in manufac¬
turing industry.
Government assistance is not limited to Development Areas: it is given to other
areas of high unemployment not listed as Development Areas. The Buckie-
Peterhead area in north-east Scotland, which is heavily dependent on the fishing
industry and has a hard core of unemployment, is not a Development Area but
arrangements have been made for it to receive help through the Development Com¬
mission (seep. 373). The Commission has agreed to consider sympathetically requests
for help in building small factories for industrialists who are prepared to go there.
The Distribution of Industry Acts do not apply to Northern Ireland because the
matters they deal with are, under the Northern Ireland constitution, the concern of
the Northern Ireland Parliament, which has passed legislation to encourage indus¬
trial expansion and diversification. The Northern Ireland Government builds fac¬
tories and provides grants and loans for new industrial undertakings. As a result of
these efforts, over 170 firms have started production for the first time in Northern
Ireland or have expanded their employment since 1945 with Government assis¬
tance, and are already providing employment for nearly 26,000 workers. The
United Kingdom Government also helps Northern Ireland, in the same way as
it helps Development Areas in Great Britain, by giving preference in the matter
of Government contracts.
Organization
The British economy is a mixed economy, in which private and public enter¬
prise both play a substantial part. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century,