[2] However, the Conservative party won the 1970 general election on a manifesto committed to a two-tier system in local government.
[4] On 25 November 1971, Peter Walker, Secretary of State for the Environment, announced the membership of the commission designate.
[6] The first task of the LGBCE Designate was to divide England outside of Greater London and the metropolitan counties into non-metropolitan districts.
In February 1972 it was announced that the government wished to hold elections for the new district councils in June 1973, requiring the commission to finalise its scheme by November 1972, five months earlier than originally envisaged.
It had been expected that the town boundaries would be extended to include surrounding rural areas, but this was instead to be left to later periodic reviews.
[20] Written objections to the scheme were to be received by 21 June, after which the commission would hold meetings with existing authorities before presenting their final proposals.
There were also a number of changes to districts due to the alteration of county boundaries as the Local Government Act had passed through parliament.
[25] Proposed boundaries for wards for the election of district councillors were to be circulated within three weeks, with final arrangements to be made by February or March 1973, allowing polling to be held in June.
[27] The commission invited the merging authorities to suggest up to three names for each district which should have "general acceptance and should be relevant to the geography or history of the locality".
The concept of successor parishes had been introduced late in the passage of the Local Government Act following pressure from small towns that felt they would lose their identity in the large new districts.
[32] The Secretary of State for the Environment, Geoffrey Rippon, referred a number of failed applications back to the commission.
Enfield council had submitted their own scheme, which they claimed provided a fairer distribution of seats to electors, and began court proceedings against the commission.
[37] The LGBCE was able to carry out the routine work of reviewing wards and parishes, with a large number of orders made during the 1970s and 1980s.
The commission also agreed that the two districts in the Isle of Wight should be abolished, with the county council becoming a unitary authority.
The 1992 legislation allowed for a more fundamental reform of local government than the 1972 act, with a new commission able to carry out structural reviews and replace the two-tier system with unitary authorities.