“When Welwyn Garden City was planned, the workers homes were placed in the east, downwind from the factories in the middle, whilst the bosses got the larger westside homes in Handside. This sort of social engineering, including the absence of a pub, would not be acceptable today.”

British politician

Sir Grant Shapps is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament for Welwyn Hatfield from 2005 to 2024. During that period, he held a series of senior cabinet roles under David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak. He was Conservative Party co-chairman from 2010 to 2012, then served as Transport Secretary from 2019 to 2022. In 2022 he briefly became Home Secretary, and under Sunak he later held the Business, Energy, and Defence briefs, serving as Secretary of State for Defence from August 2023 to July 2024.