In many ways, the most fundamental, striking and effective aspect of post-war government policies aimed at redressing inter-regional economic inequalities in Britain has been the promotion of industrial movement from the prosperous central regions to the lagging peripheral regions of the country. At the same time, what few coherent intra-regional planning policies are being implemented, notably for such areas as south east England, the Glasgow region, and the west Midlands, depend essentially upon the physical transfer of employment from congested central conurbations or cities to outlying settlements, including such famous new towns as Stevenage, Harlow, Cumbernauld and the incipient Milton Keynes. At both scales, national and regional, employment mobility is thus of crucial importance for successful implementation of government physical and economic planning policies, as well as for any prediction of the future configuration of the country's space-economy.

The validity of these assertions is evident not least from the spate of government legislation concerned with the promotion of employment mobility which has been enacted since 1945. Stimulated initially by the Barlow Commission Report on the Distribution of the Industrial Population (Royal Commission, 1940), and encouraged increasingly by political pressures from such peripheral areas as Scotland and Wales, successive post-war governments have placed on the statute book at least eight major Acts concerned wholly or in part with encouraging the movement of economic activity within Britain (Dowie, 1968; McCrone, 1969).