> Queen Victoria simply decreed, and it was done

People seem to get incredibly confused about British constitutional history… No she didn’t, don’t be silly, she wasn’t a dictator. About the only European monarch who could got around decreeing stuff left right and center in this period was the Russian tsar; there just weren’t that many absolute monarchs left.

You’re correct that they didn’t have, like, modern planning law, but it was nothing to do with Victoria.