Cumbria County Council cabinet agreed today to express “significant concerns” that Cumbria will be poorly served by the Regional Spatial Strategy if it is adopted in its current form.
Once formally adopted, the RSS will, from 2008, set the context for all planning and land use decisions taken by planning authorities in the county and across the North West region.
Issues the county council will raise include:
A lack of a clear ‘vision’ for the Cumbria.
A failure to get to grips with the needs of sparsely populated rural areas.
An urban bias in proposed Regional Transport Strategy approach to providing quality public transport.
An over-emphasis on the Northern Way which pays insufficient attention to development potential of regional towns and cities such as Barrow and Carlisle.
The absence of justification for a proposed increase in renewable energy targets for the region.
A lack of commitment to ‘transformational’ change in the Cumbrian economy in light of its recent poor performance.
Tim Stoddard, leader of Cumbria County Council, said:
“This sort of planning document can seem very dry and distant from people’s lives. But the truth is that the Regional Spatial Strategy will directly affect peoples’ lives. This document will soon become the framework within which all planning decisions are taken –those decisions have a real impact on the availability of decent jobs, the kind of homes we live in, the kind of environment we have –all the conditions in which people in Cumbria live, work and raise their families.
“We are making these points to try to make sure that people here have a fair chance to flourish and that Cumbria gets a fair shake of the dice and is not treated as the poor rural relation of the region’s big towns and cities.”
Cumbria County Council’s comments are made as part of the fifth round of RSS consultations. It is likely to be the council’s last opportunity to make formal representations on the draft document before the 'formal objection period' stage begins in 2006.