ENVIRONMENTAL issues have been added to the Cumberland Plan as a “key priority” for its leadership in 2023.
Cumberland Council is set to take over in Carlisle, Allerdale and Copeland on April 1 2023, at which point the existing county, city and borough councils will be abolished.
The new authority has been consulting on the Cumberland Plan, a document which sets out its priorities, values and approach moving forward from Vesting Day.
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Leading councillors are set to meet on Tuesday September 20 to continue making important decisions in preparation for the new authority’s launch.
And the leadership will discuss the latest version of the Cumberland Plan, hearing about any recent updates from officers.
A report set to be discussed by councillors next week reveals that environmental resilience and climate change have been added as a key priority along with “addressing inequality as a key priority of the council, which includes reference to food security and the food system.”
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More detail on the diversity of the Cumberland population has been included.
The new authority's elected member for Belah, Helen Davison believes that the inclusion of climate issues in the Council Plan is an important step forward.
Councillor Davison said: “It is great to see so many people in our communities responded to the consultation on the plan. I am very relieved to see that on the back of feedback on the draft plan that environmental resilience and climate change have now been added as a key priority for the council."
Cllr Davison, who leads the Green group on the new council said: “This is so critical right now given the rapidly and visibly developing climate and environmental emergencies. And in tackling these in a meaningful way we can also help with addressing many of the health and financial inequalities within our community that are also a priority for the council.
Cllr Davison said: “I am also very pleased that the language in the plan will better reflect our diverse population and I hope that it will recognise that the actions we take locally can have a much wider impact and will stop us doing things which may appear of local benefit whilst actually being more widely detrimental to the environment.
“I will wait to see what the rewritten plan says in totality before final comment. As I have seen over the years how these documents are written is critical as so often lip service has been paid to truly sustainable actions, prioritising short term needs over the things we should have been doing to prevent the climate crisis getting to the state it now is.”
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