CUMBERLAND Council will take a step forward next week following its formation last year.

Members of the council's executive committee are due to meet at Cumbria House in Carlisle on Tuesday (October 15) from 10.30am.

They will consider the adoption of Copeland Local Plan 2021 to 2039 and it has been recommended that they refer the move for agreement at a meeting of the full council.

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

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

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."