in order to have a local body to coordinate local work to plan london, parliament passed the metropolis management act 1855 which created the metropolitan board of works (which also took over the responsibilities of the short-lived metropolitan buildings office and metropolitan commission of sewers, established in 1845 and 1848 respectively). it covered "the metropolis", the area designated london in the 1851 census (an enlarged variant of the bills of mortality area fixed in 1726), the alternative proposals had been that it should cover the metropolitan police district, the area that coal tax was levied or the area used for the metropolitan interments act 1852.