The New Towns Acts were a series of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to found new settlements or to expand substantially existing ones, to establish Development Corporations to deliver them, and to create a Commission to wind up the Corporations and take over their assets and liabilities.

The 1945 Attlee Government set up a New Towns Commission[3] to formally consider how best to repair and rebuild urban communities ravaged in World War II.

The commission concluded that there was a need to construct new towns using the instrument of development corporations supported by central government.

The Reith Commission recommended that: An Act to provide for the creation of new towns by means of development corporations, and for purposes connected therewith.

The boards were appointed by central government; importantly, they were given planning and compulsory purchase order powers.

[9] It was this act that enabled London County Council to establish its overspill estates as far away as Cornwall and Northamptonshire.

[10] The Act, despite being "obscure and almost forgotten", is credited as having a "significant effect upon the pattern of urban development" in the UK.

An Act to make, as respects England and Wales, new provision in place of section fifteen of the New Towns Act, 1946, as to the disposal of the undertakings of development corporations and other matters arising when a development corporation has achieved or substantially achieved the purposes for which it is established; to amend the law relating to development corporations by increasing the limit on the advances which may be made to them under sub section (1) of section twelve of that Act, by providing for housing subsidies to be wholly or partly withheld in respect of dwellings disposed of by them, and by authorising them to make contributions towards the provision of amenities; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid.

[27] Among other functions, this act provided for "the interest of the Commission for the New Towns and [the] development corporations in dwellings and of any associated property, rights, liabilities and obligations" to be transferred to district councils.