While at the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions, John Prescott contributed greatly to urban development and regeneration in 1998 by setting up the Urban Task Force, under the chairmanship of Richard Rogers. Its report Towards an Urban Renaissance set out recommendations on how design excellence, social wellbeing and environmental responsibility might be better integrated through the delivery of urban policy that still have resonance today.
Nick Bailey
In the early 1990s I found in the course of working for an agricultural planning consultancy that there was a reluctance to supply government policy documents to “commercial” interests. If I gave my company name when phoning departments they refused, whereas if I said I was a librarian inquiring for a researcher, they would supply the necessary item.
John Prescott’s introduction of departmental websites and the digital provision of documents made such subterfuge unnecessary.
Jancis Smith
