Event Summary
Cumbria Development Update 2026 | Summary + gallery
Devolution priorities were explored, the regeneration of Barrow scrutinised, and mayoral candidates put through their paces at Place North West’s annual deep dive on the county.
Developers and local authority directors discussed Cumbria’s opportunities and challenges at a half-day conference held at the Castle Green Hotel in Kendal and sponsored by Muse, LUC, Caddick Construction, and Curtins.
Expert speakers
- Angela Jones, director, Thriving Places at Westmorland & Furness Council
- Thomas Andrew, acting director of policy and strategy, Cumbria Combined Authority
- Lauren Allison, head of communities & engagement, Genesis Homes
- Darren Crossley, director of place & economy, Cumberland Council
- Kurt Canfield, co-owner, Jennings Brewery
- Miranda Cannon, chief executive, Westmorland & Furness Council
- Laura Percy, development director, Muse
- Andrew Bennett, interim chief executive officer, Team Barrow
- Libby Bateman, Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate
- Mike Starkie, Conservative Party mayoral candidate
- David Allen, Labour Party mayoral candidate
A new era
With the election of the county’s first mayor fast approaching, the Cumbria Combined Authority is hard at work laying the foundations for the future. Officers are creating the infrastructure that will allow the CA to leverage £333m of government funding due to flow into Cumbria to support the devolution drive over the next 30 years to improve infrastructure, deliver housing, and create jobs.
- The ability to move at pace was one thing that concerned all panellists, with the planning system, a lack of public sector skills and resource and utility service delays cited as blockers to development.
- The solution to Cumbria’s nutrient neutrality conundrum is expected to unlock hundreds of homes and has been welcomed by the housebuilding sector.
- The need to attract people to live in Cumbria is crucial to achieving economic growth given the county’s declining working age population – to do so, town centres must densify and diversify, attractive neighbourhoods must be delivered, and infrastructure challenges must be overcome.
- Cumbria’s combined authority can learn lessons from others that have gone before it, but it must be bespoke so that it can meet the needs of the county, much of which is rural.
- The incoming mayor, whoever it may be, must be “dynamic and visionary” and able to adapt quickly to challenges and work collaboratively with stakeholders.
- The planned regeneration of the Jennings Brewery in Cockermouth is an example of a developer showing ambition by taking a risk in a tricky project. “If a planner, an ecologist, a heritage consultant, and a brewer sat down together and designed the most complicated development site possible, you might be close to Jennings Brewery,” said Kurt Canfield, who is leading on the site’s redevelopment.
All roads lead to Barrow
Arguably the country’s most intriguing regeneration proposition, Barrow requires the construction of around 7,000 new homes over the coming years to meet housing demand driven by BAE Systems’ growing workforce; the firm has been selected by the government to build the Astute, Dreadnought, and SSN-AUKUS submarine programmes from the town’s shipyard.
- ECF, the joint venture between Muse, Legal & General, and Homes England has been selected to deliver one of Barrow’s key housing sites – the 1,600-home Marina Village. It will deliver a diverse array of housing types to “create a market”, according to Laura Percy, development director at Muse.
- The need to move the housing programme forward at pace to satisfy a demand that exists now presents challenges around skills that Team Barrow and ECF are acutely aware of. “[Resolving the skills problem] is not something that we want to just look at embedding through procurement or doing it as a social value add on,” Percy said. “This is going to take a completely different approach and it’s going to be a consortium approach, not just collaboration.”
- The Barrow regeneration project is multifaceted in its aims; it is not all just about housing. The scheme must provide good quality homes for BAE staff but also seek to address local challenges and diversify the economy to bring about an end to the economic peaks and troughs that track with defence investment.
- “Barrow is a place where we can build a very clear future for communities, but we also need to tackle some really challenging problems that affect many communities,” said Andrew Bennett, chief executive of Team Barrow.
The mayoral candidates set out their stalls. Credit: PNW
Mayoral hustings
The three candidates who have so far thrown their hats into the ring to be the first mayor of Cumbria made their pitches to the development community. Conservative Mike Starkie, Lib Dem Libby Bateman, and Labour’s David Allen explained why they would make an effective mayor at the first hustings prior to the election next May.
David Allen – Labour Party
The size of the opportunity devolution presents for Cumbria is not lost on Labour’s Allen. Failure to seize it will result in the county “continuing to be forgotten by the South”, he said.
“Cumbria stands at a threshold, a crossroads, and the decisions that are made now and over the next year will shape it for a generation.”
Currently the county’s police and crime commissioner, Allen believes that delivering housing in Cumbria’s town centres will be key to driving growth.
“Look at what they’ve done in Ancoats, look what they’ve done in Stockport. We need to bring people back living into our town centres,” he said. “That is the only way you’ll drive the regeneration.”
Mike Starkie – Conservative Party
Describing himself as “Cumbrian to the core”, Starkie is the only one of the candidates to have been a mayor before. He was elected to lead Copeland Council in 2015 and returned the cash-strapped local authority around. He has been advocating for a Cumbrian mayor for over a decade and laments the county’s reticence to take the devolution plunge.
“Over the last 10 years I’ve championed that cause every single day that we should be moving forward and we should be devolving and not following the rest of the country but leading,” he said.
As mayor, Starkie, who ran a wealth management firm before moving into politics, said he would stick up for business and provide the clarity it craves. “We have all the growth plans in the world, and I’ve seen a million of them. What we want is a delivery plan,” he said.
Libby Bateman said young voters would be key to the outcome of the election. Credit: PNW
Libby Bateman – Liberal Democrats
“The challenge facing the next mayor is not choosing between growth and protection, it’s demonstrating that we can actually achieve both,” said Liberal Democrat Bateman, who said she is up for the challenge.
A champion of rural communities, with extensive knowledge of key sectors of the Cumbrian economy including hospitality, agriculture, and land management, Bateman said her understanding of what makes the county tick means she is the best person for the job as mayor.
On housing, Bateman said: “Our homes should reflect the character of our communities, respect our landscapes, and be energy efficient, so residents benefit from the lower running costs and greater resilience into the future.”
During her campaign Bateman will be targeting the “huge cohort” of young voters who she said have been left frustrated at not being able to have a say in recent elections.
What’s next?
Place North West Property Lunch 2026 – 2 July
West Yorkshire Development Update – 7 July
Greater Manchester Development Update – 3 September
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