Frequently Asked Questions
When the St Cuthbert’s project was awarded garden village status the government advised that local authorities should decide for themselves what a garden village should be:
"We do not consider that there is a single template for a garden village, town or city. It will be important for the new community to establish a clear and distinct sense of identity. We want to see local areas adopt innovative approaches and solutions to creating great places rather than following a set of rules".
In the past garden villages were an important part of Britain’s urban development history from the industrial revolution to the development of Letchworth and Welwyn Garden Cities in the 1920s. Many of the original garden settlements still thrive today as well-designed healthy places with affordable homes and with day to day needs located within walking distance of homes. The garden settlement model has become an internationally recognised standard of design quality in urban planning. St Cuthbert’s will aim to continue this ethos by providing local employment and community facilities and a range of housing set in attractive surroundings and an abundance of green spaces – thereby creating a series of new communities that will stand the test of time.
For more information on garden communities go to: https://www.tcpa.org.uk/understanding-garden-villages
For the last four years Carlisle has grown at a rate of over 500 houses per year with 2018/19 seeing a record number of 625 houses built. Whilst some of these houses have been in the form of small-scale development in villages, many have been built as part of large housing estates on the urban edge of Carlisle. These sites have generally been earmarked in the Local Plan. However, very few sustainable sites remain and the City is constrained by the Western By-Pass (A689) to the west, the M6 to the north and east and the flood plain of the River Eden in the middle.
The area to the south of Carlisle allows the establishment of three separate settlements connected to the city and the wider countryside by an extensive network of footpaths and cycleways, rivers, and green corridors. This type of planning lets the Council take in the bigger picture of what new communities will need in order to develop, enabling a sustainable approach to long term growth.
The garden village is central to the continued success of Carlisle, meeting immediate housing needs and providing continuity in housing supply that will drive growth in to the future. The proposed Carlisle Southern Link Road (CSLR), which will connect the M6 junction 42 with the A595, will unlock the land necessary to build the garden village. The selection of the preferred route for the CSLR followed detailed technical assessments as well as comprehensive public and stakeholder engagement. On 9 October 2020 Cumbria County Council's Development Control and Regulation Committee approved the planning application to build the new Carlisle Southern Link Road (CSLR). For more information on the CSLR please go to:
New homes are required to meet the immediate and longer-term housing and economic development needs of the District and Borderlands region, making it more sustainable for the future. There is an existing gap in the workforce and the recruitment and retention of workers by local employers is already an issue for businesses across Carlisle. Therefore, the continued growth of the economy is dependent on an increased labour pool, and meeting this existing and increased employment demand means there is a need for new homes.
The housing sites that are earmarked in the Local Plan are largely completed, under construction or have planning permission. Looking forward over the next 30 years St Cuthbert’s presents the opportunity to develop distinct new communities with integrated services and facilities which will meet day to day needs within walking distance of homes.
Whilst the number of new homes proposed may seem ambitious, these homes are needed to meet long term supply, respond effectively to projected demand, take opportunities to deliver a wider range of housing types and tenures including self-build and affordable, and create new places with their own identity.
The development of the garden village will raise the profile and prominence of Carlisle and Cumbria as a place to invest, live and work.
Governance arrangements including day to day project management have been set up by Carlisle City Council’s Executive (report ref: ED 17/17) which sets out how, and by whom, the garden village process is managed. Ultimately, the City Council’s Executive takes decisions on matters of policy and funding. Any decision the Executive takes is also subject to scrutiny by the City Council’s Overview and Scrutiny panels. At the completion of Stage One of the St Cuthbert’s Garden Village Masterplan in February 2019, the Executive (and Scrutiny panel) approved the commencement of Stage 2 of the Masterplan, allocating the funding and updating the governance arrangements for the process (report ref: ED 06/19). In April 2020, report ED1 17/20 updated the Executive on progress of the project and secuured agreement to take the next steps. In November 2020 report ED 39/20 sought and secured approval for the draft St Cuthbert's Local Plan policies to proceed to public consultation.
At officer level a series of groups have been set up as follows:
What is the St Cuthbert's Masterplan?
The St Cuthbert’s Masterplan establishes the vision and concept for what the garden communities are trying to achieve and how they will do this. The masterplan will provide maps of where different types of development will be located across the plan area and, importantly, how they will all be connected with roads, footpaths and cycleways, and green corridors. It will also highlight important parts of the landscape and natural environment that will need to be protected and enhanced as part of the creation of new garden communities. Finally, the Masterplan establishes a list of nine guiding principles to which all development proposals within the St Cuthbert’s area will need to subscribe to and help deliver.
What is the St Cuthbert's Local Plan?
The St Cuthbert’s Local Plan will set the planning policy for the area that all development must legally conform to. It will also formally allocate land for specific types of development in line with the layouts worked up in the St Cuthbert’s Masterplan. The Local Plan will essentially be the delivery tool for the Masterplan, setting planning policy that will make sure new development is working towards delivering the vision and guiding principles for St Cuthbert’s. The Local Plan is a statutory planning document. This means that because it sets legally binding planning policy it is subject to a number of checks and balances during its production, including public consultation and a formal examination in public conducted by an independent planning inspector, before it can be adopted.
The Strategic Design Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) provides guidance about how the strateic design of the Garden Village should be considered by those submitting planning applications for development in the area. The guidance is for landowners, applicants and the City Council, and aims to make sure that new development is of the right quality for a Garden Village. More information can be found here.
The River Caldew and the River Petteril both flow through the area and have extensive and shifting flood plains. These areas will remain undeveloped as they play an important role in storing flood water. They have high recreation and biodiversity value and great potential to link into a wider network of public rights of way, both existing and newly created routes, thereby enabling access to the wider countryside, and also into the city.
Surface water flooding is a localised issue across the area, and landowners and residents have been helping us identify all the locations where this happens. Stakeholders such as United Utilities, the Environment Agency and Cumbria County Council as Lead Local Flood Authority have and continue to be heavily involved in all stages of the masterplanning to ensure that a surface water strategy will set out how site drainage can be achieved.
The masterplanning process has ensured that the design of the villages avoids key flood risk zones. The design of the area has been informed by a drainage strategy that has identified opportunities to provide high quality, attractive drainage systems across the the site.
It is important that St Cuthbert’s sets a high standard for design in Carlisle. The design and the layout of the new communities and their green spaces will mean that whilst some land is used for housing and other buildings, other areas of land will be retained as open space and wider green infrastructure networks. It is anticipated that different communities will have their own distinct character and appearance. We are seeking a high variety of design types for new buildings and landscaping.
In September 2019, the Council hosted a Design Review panel who were asked to consider the draft options for St Cuthbert’s alongside the vision and concept established in Stage One of the Masterplan. This panel consisted of independent experts in the fields of masterplanning, architecture and design. They provided valuable insight and guidance on how St Cuthbert’s will be able to achieve and maintain a strong and unique sense of place. A second design panel was held in June 2020 to consider the emerging preferred option and progress on the garden village to date.
A Strategic Design Supplementary Planning Document has been drafted to provide further planning guidance for applicants within the Garden Village. More information is available here.
Many different types of homes will be built, including self and custom build, affordable housing, open market housing, homes for private and social rent, homes for the elderly and extra care housing. If evidence suggests there is a need, then sites for Gypsies and Travellers could also be included. A genuine mix of house types are likely to be included in a series of distinct new communities. The Council is keen to encourage self and custom building of new homes, where individuals are given support and freedom, either working with a house developer or by themselves, to design and build their own homes on plots that have been connected to important utilities and infrastructure. The Council has commissioned the National Right to Build Task Force, who are experts on planning for self and custom build houses, to provide guidance and advice on how this sector can be supported and enabled through planning policy.
This project is too large scale for just one developer to take on. It will be delivered through collaboration between the public and private sectors, ensuring there is space and scope for different types and sizes of developers from the large-scale volume builders right down to individuals wishing to build their own home. We are actively working to promote St Cuthbert’s far and wide to attract home builders to the area who have not traditionally been active in Cumbria. It is anticipated that Garden Village status, alongside the scale of the opportunity, will prove to be an attractive opportunity for developers to get involved with.
The Council has comissioned a soft market testing exercise that will involve a wide range of operators within the housebuilding industry to fully understand what will attract them to St Cuthbert's and identify any barriers that may exist.
Carlisle has a prosperous economy which is home to many successful engineering, manufacturing and logistics companies including Pirelli, McVities, Nestle, Cavaghan and Gray and Eddie Stobbart. The area is also strong in the tourism and leisure industry. The success of Kingmoor Park Enterprise Zone aided by the incentives available at the site continue to bode well for future growth prospects. Increasing the number of people who are available to work is critical in driving the economy. It is known that recruitment and retention of workers by local employers is already an issue in Carlisle and Cumbria more widely.
Recent investment including updates to Pirelli’s research and manufacturing capabilities and the September 2018 announcement of a £7m expansion of Cavaghan and Gray’s food manufacturing site (creating 200 new jobs and which was completed in summer 2019) all give confidence that Carlisle has the right conditions to create economic growth.
St Cuthbert’s itself will create local employment opportunities for new and existing businesses by actively promoting itself as being open to new business and investment. Longer term the Garden Village also has the potential to play a bigger role in providing scope to attract larger scale employers through the provision of good quality accessible employment land to the South of the City. Evidence identifies strong economic and employment growth opportunities for Carlisle to 2030 driven by strengths in advanced engineering, food manufacturing, logistics and warehousing and tourism and leisure.
More information is available in the Identification of Future Growth Opportunities in Carlisle report.
Carlisle has an ageing population and therefore workforce. This creates a need to fill jobs as workers retire across a wide range of sectors. Creating an attractive and innovative place for people to live may help in drawing people to Carlisle to help tackle this issue. Further work is underway to develop an employment strategy for the site.
The development of St Cuthbert’s will require significant new infrastructure. The City Council is working closely with a large range of infrastructure providers such as the Education Authority, United Utilities, the Environment Agency, the NHS and the Highways Authority to look at existing capacity and likely future requirements. The scale and nature of the garden community means that a range of day to day services can be provided within the area including schools, sports and recreational facilities, community centres, improved bus services, and first-stop health care.
There is also a need to understand how people will move in and out of the area and what improvements might be required to ensure that the road network can cope with increased demand. A Transport and Movement Study is being undertaken as part of the evidence base for the St Cuthbert's Local Plan. Alongside this a local cycling and walking infrastructure plan (CWIP) for Carlisle is being prepared which will focus on non-motorised transport interventions for moving around the garden village and for accessing the city. Access to major services such as the hospital, Carlisle College, Cumbria University, the railway station and the city centre is fundamental to ensuring that the St Cuthbert’s will be an attractive place where people will want to live and work.
The Council is actively pursuing opportunities for completing the two-way upgrade to the entire length of Sewell’s Lonning. In February 2020 Carlisle was awarded some grant funding from Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, to go towards improvements. The recent Homes England approval for development at Carleton Clinic includes developer contributions that will be taken towards improving infrastructure in the area.
Many people have already been involved in consultations on St Cuthbert’s since the project was launched in January 2018. This includes members of local communities, service and infrastructure providers, local and national businesses, the Environment Agency and Natural England, parish councils, land owners, and developers. Previous consultations have included:
There will be future opportunities to get involved. The first stop for information is the St Cuthbert’s website – www.stcuthbertsgv.co.uk. With every public consultation we do, we will hold a series of public drop in events, and we will be uploading information to our web site on a regular basis to help keep people informed.
Outside of these more formal consultation periods there is a commitment to capture as wide a range of views as possible including working with schools and colleges – therefore the next generations of Carlisle’s residents.
The next public consultation event will be to consider the draft options for the St Cuthbert's Local Plan and Stategic Design Supplmentary Planning Document. This is will commence on 10 November 2020 and run until 22 December 2020.
If you want to keep up to date with all the latest news please sign up to our mailing list on the Get Involved page at: www.stcuthbertsgv.co.uk.
Any feedback given will be used to help inform the Garden Village project. We have published three consultation feedback summary documents from the previous three consultations:
We will publish feeback on all future consultations online in due course.
The Council has involved landowners across the area in project from the start to help raise awareness of what is planned for St Cuthbert’s and how it might affect them over the coming decades. We have built up our contact details using the Land Registry. However, sometimes their data is out of date, so if we haven’t been in contact with you, or if you have recently moved into the area, please get in touch. Not all land across the area will be developed for housing, open space or other uses. Large areas will remain undeveloped and retain their existing use as farmland or floodplain etc. If you are unsure of what the proposals could mean for you please get in touch [email protected]
Whilst the use of Compulsory Purchase powers is an option open to the Council, it is only ever used as a last resort should it be vital that land be acquired, and all other options have been exhausted.
Any land owners affected by the route of the Carlisle Southern Link Road will have already been contacted by Cumbria County Council. For further information please go to: https://www.cumbria.gov.uk/cslr/
In the UK, delivery of infrastructure by private developers is normal on smaller sites. However, the scale of St Cuthbert’s, together with the need for innovation and delivery over a considerable period of time, mean that several different approaches, are likely to be more appropriate. One of the principles of garden communities is that some of the increase in land value is reinvested into the development. It is also imperative that some of the infrastructure is put in place from the outset, whether this be a primary school, strategic green space or a community building. In addition, these community assets will need to be managed and maintained in the long term.
It is therefore likely that the public sector will need to play a role in infrastructure delivery. Options for doing this include partnership working (City Council, County Council, landowners and Homes England) or the setting up of a Locally Led Development Corporation with the benefit of planning powers; potential to buy land; and potential to borrow to fund infrastructure delivery.
Carlisle City Council is currently exploring different delivery options for St Cuthbert's. Conversations also continue to be on going with utilities and service providers. We are working with partners produce an Infrastructure Delivery Plan (IDP) which is being prepared alongside the Local Plan.
This project is for the long-term growth of Carlisle and will see the city grow over the next 30 years at a rate that is generally in line with what has been seen throughout its history. Thousands of homes were constructed in areas like Morton, Harraby, and Lowry Hill in the 1960s and 70s. These areas have become integral parts of Carlisle and did not cause any kind of mass movement of people out of central areas to live there. Any movement of people choosing to leave central parts of the City to live in the new Garden Community is anticipated to be at a sustainable rate, with people who want to be located more centrally ready to move in as part of the natural ebb and flow of population within a settlement. It is expected that St Cuthbert’s will also attract people from outside the district to come and live in Carlisle, supporting services and businesses across the city and helping to grow the local economy.
As the new Garden Communities become more established, they will complement existing areas within Carlisle and provide access for all to use the facilities and greenspaces that will be part of it.
Properties can become vacant for a variety of reasons including natural turnover in the housing market. The current number of vacant properties within Carlisle cannot realistically be expected to meet the housing need for our growing city.
The Council is, however, addressing issues with empty homes across the district and is actively working to bring them back into use. We have a dedicated officer whose role is focused primarily on long-term empty homes that have been vacant for over two years. We have a strategy for contacting and exploring the issues faced by property owners. This strategy is working, and we have managed to reverse the national trend for empty properties by bringing nearly 100 homes back into use between April 2018 and March 2019, reducing the number of empty homes in the district by around 10%. Evidence suggests that the number of empty properties in Carlisle is now below the average for the North West of England.
An important part of developing the proposals for St Cuthbert’s is exploring how low carbon development can be achieved. The Council is looking at what opportunities there are for low carbon options across the area as part of an emerging low carbon strategy. This will be made available online at www.stcuthbertsgv.co.uk when it is ready. Low carbon opportunities range from looking at large scale power generation methods such as district heat networks and renewable energy, right through to requiring stricter regulations and standards for the construction of individual homes. Planning policy requirements for ensuring new developments are low carbon solutions are included in the draft St Cuthbert’s Local Plan.
There are strong links between the construction of the Carlisle Southern Link Road and the unlocking of development parcels for the building of the new garden communities. Construction of the road is due to start in spring 2022 and be completed two years later. The new communities that will make up St Cuthbert’s will take at least 30 years to develop, with a potential rate of building at 500 dwellings per year. Development rates will inevitably reflect the market demand at any period in time.