Part 8: Development Corporations Local authority proposals and oversight Section 171: Locally-led urban development corporations Background
Sections 134 and 135 of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 makes provision for the Secretary of State to designate, by order, one or more parcels of land as an urban development area if it is expedient in the national interest to do so and to establish an Urban Development Corporation to oversee an urban development area.
	Responses to the Development Corporation Reform: Technical Consultation suggested that there is a gap in the existing models of development corporation, particularly outside of mayoral areas where there is no model with a regeneration remit available for local authorities.
	Therefore, provisions in section 171 allows the Secretary of State, upon request from a local authority or authorities, to designate an urban development area and create an Urban Development Corporation for which a local authority rather than central government is responsible.
	It allows the Secretary of State to appoint one or more local authorities to oversee the regeneration of an urban development area. It also gives the Secretary of State the power to modify the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 through secondary legislation, so that some of the functions for overseeing the development corporation which sit with central government can be transferred to the relevant local authority or local authorities, and makes further changes necessary to enable the local authority led model to work effectively.