Editing Greater London Council (section)

==Powers==
The GLC was responsible for running strategic services such as the [[fire service]], emergency planning, waste disposal and flood prevention. The GLC shared responsibility with the [[London borough]]s for providing roads, housing, [[city planning]] and leisure services. It had a very limited role in direct service provision with most functions the responsibility of the London boroughs. The GLC did not take control of public transport from the [[London Transport Board]] until 1970 and lost control to [[London Regional Transport]] in 1984.
Under the 1963 Act, the GLC was required to produce a ''Greater London Development Plan''. The plan included in its wide-ranging remit: population changes, employment, housing, pollution, [[Transport in London|transport]], roads, the [[Central London|central area]], growth and development areas, urban [[Parks and open spaces in London|open spaces]] and the urban landscape, public services and utilities and planning standards. The plan included the comprehensive redevelopment of [[Covent Garden]] and creating a central London motorway loop. The plan was subject to an Inquiry which lasted from July 1970 until May 1972.<ref>{{cite book |title=Greater London Development Plan: Report of the panel of inquiry |date=1973 |publisher=[[HMSO]] |isbn=0117506168}}</ref> The campaign to save Covent Garden along with various opposition on other matters largely derailed the plan.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.coventgardenmemories.org.uk/category_id__47_path__0p27p.aspx|title=The Battle for Covent Garden|publisher=Covent Garden Memories|access-date=15 September 2019}}</ref>

According to one observer:

{{blockquote|Looked at from the angle of the GLC... it is useful to consider planning, highways, and traffic together, not only because of the links between them but also because, apart from housing, most other functions of the GLC although important in themselves, do not add up to an argument for a large authority of this type. The GLC is a strategic planning authority, taken in the widest sense, or it is nothing.<ref name="Hart1">{{cite journal |last=Hart |first=David |author-link=David Hart (political activist) |year=1984 |title=A Policy Biography of the Greater London Council: Planning and Transport |journal=Built Environment |volume=10 |issue=2 |page=105|jstor=23286284 |quote=Ruck, G. and Rhodes, S. (1970). The Government of Greater London. p. 96}}</ref>}}