LDF and Local Plan

Some commonly asked questions about our new kerbside recycling system.

The Council has analysed Copeland’s infrastructure and is determining the priorities for improving it. (Infrastructure includes not only the physical infrastructure - such as transport, energy and water supply, drainage – but also social and environmental assets - such as sports facilities, community halls and open space). This SPD will set out those priorities as a basis for negotiating planning contributions from developers, so that new development helps to meet the impacts which it has on the Borough. The SPD will also inform negotiations with the developers of the proposed nuclear power station to secure the investment needed to make sure that benefits to the community of nuclear new build are optimised. The Council may decide to adopt a Community Infrastructure Levy, which would be a tariff potentially on all development. The SPD cannot do this and any proposal for a levy would be in a separate document subject to separate consultation and independent public examination.

Welcome to the Planning Policy Pages of the Copeland Borough Council website.

For Current Consultations and Recent Publications, please visit our Consultation webpage.

Archived Content. 

This page is for information only. The Council adopted the Copeland Local Plan 2013-2028 Core Strategy and Development Management Policies on 5 December 2013.  Visit the Copeland Local Plan 2013-2028 webpage to view the Plan.

Archived Content.  This page is for information only.

The Council adopted the Copeland Local Plan 2013-2028 Core Strategy and Development Management Policies DPD on 5 December 2013. Visit the Copeland Local Plan 2013-2028 webpage.

Retail and Leisure Study Update 2021

Copeland has a succesful tradition of self build developments in the borough.

The Site Allocations and Policies Plan will demonstrate how the adopted Core Strategy, and crucially the policies which outline the borough’s ambitious targets for growth and development, will be delivered on the ground, as well as identifying areas to be protected from development.  Together with the adopted Core Strategy and Development Management Policies it will provide the basis for determining planning applications.

The Local Plan should allocate enough land to meet the borough’s predicted needs over the plan period (2013-2028) which is identified in the adopted Core Strategy.  The Site Allocations and Policies Plan will achieve this with a suite of site specific policies followed by the proposed options for land allocations.  Once adopted, they will replace the remaining allocations that have been saved from the Copeland Local Plan 2001-2016.

Map of St.Bees highlighting the proposed Site Allocations. 

For more information on the Site Allocations and Policies Plan, please click here

To give feedback, please click here

A significant proportion of the urban areas within Copeland are situated in close proximity to the coast and the large rivers of the Borough, and these areas are consequently at risk of coastal and fluvial flooding. However, these are not the only flood risks. There are many locations that are threatened by flooding from the numerous small watercourses that are features of the upland and rural nature of Copeland, and from overloaded drainage and sewage systems.

The Copeland Strategic Flood Risk Assessment (SFRA) has been carried out to meet the following key objectives:

• to collate all known sources of flooding to identify areas that have a ‘low’, ‘medium’ and ‘high’ probability of flooding;
• to recommend appropriate land uses within flood affected areas;
• to recommend possible flood mitigation solutions.  

Strategy Evidence Documents