ABSTRACT
The Commission for the New Towns was intended to hold and manage the land, housing, industrial and commercial assets of the new towns in England and Wales and although it was described as an interim and not a terminal stage of development, no provision for ending the life of the Commission in its turn was included in the bill. Labour speakers took a diametrically opposed view on almost all points. The bill was passed without a division, nevertheless, since the Labour party supported some of the other provisions contained in it. A last stand on the issue was made in 1961. Labour moved amendment of the order setting up the Commission. The Commission is primarily a management rather than a development agency. The Commission for the New Towns, during those first fifteen years, could be said to symbolize all the contradictions of the new towns policy.
