Development of new towns by local authorities
In the Housing White Paper 2017, the Government committed to legislate to enable the creation of locally accountable new town development corporations by modifying the New Towns Act 1981. A local model would transfer the responsibility of overseeing the development corporation and the delivery of a new town to a local body.
	The Act allows the Secretary of State to create a new town 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 delivery of the new town through a development corporation. It also gives the Secretary of State the power to modify the New Towns Act 1981 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.