CUMBERLAND Council is set to formally adopt the Copeland Local Plan 2021 to 2039.

The matter will be put to the vote on Tuesday, November 5.

Two new unitary authorities – Cumberland and Westmorland & Furness – were formed in April 2023 and they replaced seven former councils and adopting the local plan is part of the transfer of services to the new council.

The former local authorities which they replaced were: Cumbria County, Carlisle, Allerdale, Copeland, Eden, South Lakeland and Barrow-in-Furness councils.

Members of the council's executive committee met at Cumbria House on Tuesday (October 15) and councillor Bob Kelly (Millom, Labour), the Cumberland policy and regulatory services portfolio holder, said it represented "five years of hard work".

Councillor Mark Fryer (St Johns and Great Clifton, Labour), the leader of the council, said that the eventual aim was to develop a full local plan for Cumberland and adopting the Copeland Local Plan would help lay the foundations for that move.

Cllr Kelly moved the report, he was seconded by the leader and members agreed the matter to be referred to the full council.

The council report states: "The purpose of a local plan is to provide the overarching development strategy for the area, identifying suitable locations for new development and setting out the necessary standards and requirements for such development.

"Local plans cover a minimum period of 15 years. It helps to provide certainty to developers and communities and helps to bring investment into a place.

"Prior to Local Government Reorganisation, Copeland Borough Council was at a very advanced stage in producing its new Copeland Local Plan that would replace the Core Strategy and Development Management Policies document (adopted December 2013), and there had been four large scale public consultations on draft versions of the Plan in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022."

According to the report it was decided to continue and complete the production of the draft local plan, to be adopted by either Copeland Council or Cumberland Council, to ensure that the Copeland area had an up-to-date local plan for making planning decisions in the early years of the new unitary authority.

It was sent to the Secretary of State for Independent Examination on September 16, 2022, and the Planning Inspectorate issued the Inspector’s Report, which outlines all of the modifications the council must make to the submitted local plan documents in order to make it "sound and legally compliant".

The report adds: "These main modifications are binding and are required to enable the council to adopt the Copeland Local Plan.

"The documents that were submitted to the Secretary of State have now been updated to incorporate the inspector’s main modifications, together with a number of minor additional modifications that have been identified by officers to ensure the local plan is accurate and up-to-date."