The Council published our Notice of Intention to commence local plan preparation on 30th June 2026 along with our timetable for producing the Cumberland Local Plan.
In line with this timetable, we started preparing a new local plan for the areas of Cumberland outside the Lake District National Park on 2 November 2026
Government policy says we should adopt the new plan within 30 months of this date. This is to help ensure we have an up-to-date local plan that responds to the needs of the area and our communities.
We explain what we did to get ready to meet the 30-month timeframe. It also has links to further information and where you can get updates.
Find further information about the Cumberland Local Plan.
We published a timetable for preparing the plan
The timetable shows when we expect to carry out the different stages and activities for preparing a plan. It helps us check if and how we can adopt the plan within the 30-month timeframe. We’ll keep this updated as we make more progress.
The first timetable was published on 30 June 2026. The first milestone was to carry out a Scoping Consultation to help determine the scope of the local plan and also how the Council will engage with communities and stakeholders. This consultation took place between 14 August and 23 September 2026.
Having continued preparatory work to produce the local plan in the ‘Getting Ready’ phase we have identified a number of risks that will affect the timing of the Plan Content and Evidence consultation and subsequent milestones. These risks include:
- Cumberland was formed in April 2023 and this will be the first Cumberland Local Plan. This means the extent of work required to produce a new local plan for a new plan area will be greater than for future reviews
- the scope of the local plan will probably need to be greater than envisaged in the regulations and guidance, as work on the Cumbria Spatial Development Strategy is yet to begin, so the Cumberland Local Plan will need to provide the strategic context as well as local policies and allocations
- the two points above have also resulted in a greater amount of evidence being required. This is because existing evidence has been produced for the former district local plans at different times and sometimes with different methodologies, which now all needs to be aligned. There is also some uncertainty about which evidence should be produced by the combined authority, local planning authorities or both
- delays to further guidance and templates have created uncertainty around evidence base, SEA etc. requirements which can impact on the programme
- whole council elections on 6 May 2027 will result in many new councillors being elected, and possibly new control of the Council or even a period of no overall control for the Council. It will take a period of time after the elections to establish the leadership and committees, brief Members, understand the new Council’s priorities and reflect it all in the local plan. Cumbria’s first mayor will also be elected in May 2027, which will add another political dimension
An updated timetable will be published alongside this Gateway 1 Self-Assessment to reflect the changes to key milestones.
We believe the updated timetable is achievable because we:
- are making good progress with the initial stages of plan making, having completed the Scoping Consultation. We are also consulting on the scope and baseline for our Integrated Assessment of the local plan (which includes SEA) to ensure the assessment will be timely and effective
- we have specialist plan making software, which should streamline plan making and consultation stages, as well as promote a digital first plan while also enabling traditional formats to easily be produced
- have streamlined our governance and decision-making processes to reduce delays while maintaining Member oversight of the key consultation documents
- have issued two Calls for Sites to help understand land availability to deliver the local plan and have also started producing and commissioning the evidence base that will inform the policies and allocations in local plan
Find the Local Plan timetable, and subsequent updates.
We established project management and governance arrangements
Preparing a local plan is a complex process. It involves many people across the council and from other organisations. Thinking early about how the work is planned, managed and signed off helps us monitor our progress and keep the work on track. It also helps us anticipate and manage any risks to us adopting the plan within 30 months.
We have prepared a Project Initiation Document (PID), which outlines the scope, timetable, resources (staff and financial), governance arrangements and risks to plan production. It also includes details of the key evidence to be produced and the approach to stakeholder engagement.
We have established a Local Plan Board of senior officers who regularly monitor the plan’s progress, review risks and consider issues as they arise to help keep the project on track.
The Council has agreed delegated authority for ‘process’ decisions to the Director of Place and Economy following consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Environment and Planning.
The Council has established a cross-party Cumberland Local Plan Member Advisory Group to consider and give feedback on local plan evidence and proposals as they emerge. This provides an early political view and also helps to inform the wider council membership of progress.
In addition, the Council has agreed a more streamlined process for Full Council to consider the Plan Content and Evidence and Proposed Plan consultation documents to help meet the 30 month timeframe. Wider Member briefings will keep councillors informed through the process, with workshops to be arranged at relevant times to gain councillor inputs and feedback.
We planned how we’ll consult on the plan
Public consultation is essential for the local plan to represent the needs of our communities. It must be easy for people to have their say in a way that works for them, so they can influence the way the area develops. By planning this early, we can ensure people are aware in advance and can get involved from the start.
We have undertaken a scoping consultation to get people’s views on what the plan could contain and how we propose to consult on the plan at key stages.
As part of the scoping consultation we produced a draft Consultation and Engagement Plan which outlines a variety of in person, online and traditional forms of engagement that can be used at different stages during plan production. We will consider the feedback to the draft Consultation and Engagement Plan to produce consultation plans for each key stage and engagement throughout the process.
We began scoping the content of the plan
Scoping includes considering how well the existing local plans are working and gathering baseline information about the area. This helps to identify our future needs and ambitions. Starting this early means we can begin preparing the new plan with a clear vision, making it quicker and easier to consult on the plan and make decisions about it.
As Cumberland was formed in April 2023 this is the first Cumberland Local Plan, and as such is not a review and update of an existing local plan. Before the new Local Plan making Regulations were announced the Council had conducted a comprehensive Issues and Options consultation during September and October 2025 to gather views.
The Scoping Consultation in September 2026 used the high-level summary of responses to the Issues and Options consultation to recognise what has already been said and also help to check that emerging issues and priorities are correct.
The Scoping Consultation also included a draft site selection methodology paper to gain views on our approach to identifying sites for allocation or protection in the local plan as well as the SEA Screening. We also reopened the Call for Sites at this stage.
We began a Strategic Environmental Assessment
We’re legally required to identify, describe and evaluate likely significant effects on the environment of:
- implementing the local plan
- reasonable alternatives, taking into account the plan’s objectives and scope
This process will consider how community, national and international environmental protection objectives and any other environmental challenges are taken into account in the plan. It will help us to predict significant environmental effects and develop ways of preventing, reducing and offsetting these.
It is important we start this work early and are transparent about how we’re doing the assessment when engaging stakeholders and communities.
We published our SEA Screening as part of our scoping consultation which concluded that the Cumberland Local Plan should be ‘screened in’ to Strategic Environmental Assessment process.
We have decided to assess the proposals in the local plan though an Integrated Assessment that will help us understand the local plan’s social, economic and environmental impacts, while also considering health, equality and climate change impacts and meet the requirements of SEA.
An Integrated Assessment Scoping Consultation has begun with statutory consultees and has also been published on the council’s website for comment. This will help confirm baseline information and also help improve the assessment of the local plan in time for emerging proposals at the Plan Content and Evidence consultation stage.
Other ways we are getting ready
We have begun producing or commissioning evidence base work to inform the local plan, including:
- General Housing Needs Study
- Settlement services study to help inform a settlement hierarchy
- Transport baseline and strategic options assessment
- Economic needs and land supply
- Level 1 Strategic Flood Risk Assessment
- Open Space Assessment
How to stay up to date
The Cumberland Local Plan will be kept up to date with new documents and proposals as local plan makes progress.
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