The Londonderry Development Commission was established in 1969 by the O'Neill Government as it tried to stave off the impending crisis brought about by years of discrimination against Catholics in employment and housing. Under New Town Legislation adapted from the British model, an existing town could be designated for expansion. As in the case of a new town, a government commission would be appointed to subsume the powers of existing local authorities and implement the plan. The commission would be kept in place until such time as the plan was implemented and the normal process of governance by a town council would thereupon resume.

So Derry, for the second time in its history, became a ‘new town’. Neither Jim Foster nor I could have suggested that our speculative suggestion for implementation of the plan, excluding the involvement of the Unionist-dominated local authorities, would be realised so soon. That it did occur was not so much based on the rational objectivity of our recommendation but rather the mounting violence that left a weakened Stormont Government little alternative. It now seemed that some modicum of justice had been achieved as the gerrymandering Derry mayor and his Unionist councillors were despatched with one stroke of the pen. Brian Morton (later Sir Brian), a prominent Northern Ireland realtor, was appointed chairman of the Commission and Stephen McGonagle, a former President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, was appointed vice-chairman. Gerald Bryan, formerly Chief Executive and head of the Civil Service on the Isle of Man, turned out to be a highly effective general manager. There was equal representation of both Catholic and Protestant members forming the rest of the Commission, but its establishment would prove to be no panacea for the rising tide of violence. As Stephen McGonagle remembers: ‘We met in the Guildhall on 2nd April 1969 only to be met by Luddite squatters led by Eamonn McCann and Bernadette Devlin who were protesting everything.’ Thereafter the Commission was forced to hold its meetings in the Rural District offices whose powers it had also subsumed.