Rapid progress was made: the decision to designate Crawley as a New Town (Britain's second) was made public on 12 July 1946, a preliminary planning committee was set up in September of that year, the New Towns Act 1946 was passed shortly afterwards to give the government authority to carry out the planning and building of New Towns, a 6000 acres area around Crawley was legally defined in January 1947, and the Crawley Development Corporation was established in February 1947.