§ Mr. Corbettasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is now in a position to announce target dates for the winding up of those new towns in which he considers that the development corporations have largely fulfilled their purposes.
§ Mr. ShoreFollowing my statements on the future of English new towns last year, consultations have taken place with570W the development corporations of most of their earlier new towns and their local authorities on the work that remains to be done and the arrangements needed for the continued normal growth of these towns. As a result of these consultations, I have decided on the following programme of target dates for winding up development corporations:
Corby … … 31st March 1980 Stevenage … … 30th June 1980 Harlow … … 30th September 1980 Runcorn … … 31st December 1981 Bracknell … … 31st March 1982 Redditch … … 30th June 1982 Washington … … 31st December 1982 Basildon … … 30th September 1983 These dates are those on which the property of the corporations will vest in the Commission for the New Towns and the corporations will cease to act except for the limited purposes provided under Section 41 of the New Towns Act 1965. The dissolution of development corporations will normally follow within three months of these dates.
I should emphasise that these are target dates for all concerned to work towards. They are not immutable if considerable problems arise in any one town, and they cannot be confirmed until the formal consultations required by the Act have taken place. I intend that these statutory consultations shall be initiated at least 12 months in advance of the target dates and envisage that the consultations in respect of the first three towns will start before the end of 1978.
I hope to be able to make an announcement about the future of Aycliffe, Peter-lee and Skelmersdale within the next few months.
§ Mr. Corbettasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will now make a statement on the terms of compensation to be offered to staff becoming redundant on the winding up of new town development corporations
§ Mr. ShoreI have examined very carefully the case put to me by new town chairmen, and the unions, for the application of Crombie code compensation for staff made redundant on dissolution of the development corporations. The Crombie code was developed as a special compensation arrangement exclusively for staff affected by a statutory change which they could not reasonably have 571W foreseen when taking up their appointments. From the inception of the development corporations it has been foreseen that they would be wound up when their development task had been completed. I have therefore decided that their dissolution cannot be regarded as a consequence of a statutory intervention and that, therefore, it would not be right to apply Crombie code terms in this case. Terms will, however, be negotiated, which will follow those normally applied by the public services where redundancies are caused by reorganisation required for managerial or administrative reasons.