5th November was the regular ‘full’ meeting of Cumberland Council. This the meeting, about 8 times a year, where all 46 Cumberland councillors attend.

Formal Business

Adoption of Copland Local Plan
All areas of England have a ‘local plan’, this sets out the guidelines for how planning decisions are made. For our area, we’re still on the local plan adopted by the former Carlisle City Council. For various reasons the area of the former Copeland Council didn’t have an up to date local plan, so Cumberland adopted the final version at this meeting. The plan will hopefully not be in place for too long, as it will be incorporated in the forthcoming Cumberland Local Plan which will be developed over the next few years.

Changes to Polling Districts and Polling Stations
This is a regular review that the Council needs to undertake. There are a few small changes to polling stations in our area, mainly because the council is moving away from using schools as polling stations.
The changes are:
– Solport Parish – new polling location Stapeton Village Hall (replacing Shankhill School)
– Westlinton Parish – Lynebank House Hotel (replacing Blackford School)
– the Harker areas of Rockcliffe Parish – Grace Little Centre, Cringledyke (replacing Laings)

Community Governance Review
The issue of a potential parish level council for Carlisle (would actually be a ‘city’ council, as Carlisle is a city) came before the Full Council again.

This was considered a year ago, but members agreed to defer the decision for one year.

The recommendation of the majority Labour Group was to not proceed with a Community Governance Review for the Carlisle city area.

I spoke against this. As Liberal Democrats we believe very strongly that local people should be involved in decisions about their area, and the parish/town council tier of elected local government is an important part of this.

Carlisle stands out from the Councils that were most recently involved in Local Government Reorganisation. Other towns that lost their ‘district’ council at the same time (Barrow, Taunton, Harrogate etc) have all had new Town Councils created. Carlisle stands out as the only one that hasn’t. In 9 years time Carlisle will be celebrating 900 years of being a city, it seems a travesty that it won’t have a democratically elected Council.

Having a parish tier City Council for Carlisle would bring in much needed funds for local and community services and activities. I calculate that, assuming Carlisle charged the same ‘precept’ level as Workington, than an extra £2 million a year would be available to spend on whatever the priorities were for the people of Carlisle.

Regrettably our proposal to proceed with a Community Governance Review for Carlisle was defeated with all Labour councillors voting against.

Written Questions

All councillors can table written questions – I try to always ask the maximum which is two. At this meeting I asked about the use of incinerators to produce electricity, given the BBC report that waste to energy production is now the most polluting type of energy production. I also asked about dementia care provision to see whether Cumberland had enough provision to meet current demand.

The questions and answer given are here:
https://timpickstone.mycouncillor.org.uk/2024/11/10/answers-to-questions-5-november-2024/

Motions
Each political group is allowed to submit one notice of motion. Two were submitted to this meeting.

I voted in favour of the Green Party Group motion on reviewing the use of glyphosate to kill weeds. The motion noted ask the Council to review the use of these (very strong) pesticides, and see whether alternatives could be found. The motion was sadly defeated with Labour councillors voting against.

I also voted in favour of a motion from (my own) Liberal Democrat Group, entitled ‘Sensible approach to Fireworks’. This proposed a number of actions that could be taken to try to help both vulnerable people, and also pets, who are upset by loud fireworks. Again the motion was defeated by other councillors.

The full text of motions, and all other business at the meeting is here.
https://cumberland.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=311&MId=14239&Ver=4