Carlisle commissions garden village studies

Carlisle City Council has commissioned two studies to inform its masterplan for the 10,000-home garden village following its successful bid for funding from the government as part of the national designations for the new growth areas this month.

St Cuthbert’s  is a proposed development of up to 10,000 new homes, employment uses, supporting infrastructure and a new link road. It is designed to become a key growth engine for Cumbria.

Planning consultancy LUC in Edinburgh and Manchester-based economists Regeneris have been instructed to gather evidence for the masterplanning process. LUC will study the landscape and townscape within the area while Regeneris assesses the current economic position of Carlisle to establish growth sectors that the district is best suited to attract in the future and the land and location requirements to suit these sectors.

Leader of Carlisle City Council, Cllr Colin Glover, said: “Inclusion within the [garden villages] programme brings access to tailored technical guidance and support, as well as access to funding and wider expertise. It is an exciting step forward for a vision that will ensure that Carlisle has the right type of development that meets the needs of a growing city.”

The council said the form and phasing of development will be guided by a masterplan which will also set out the infrastructure required to support growth and a strategy to ensure its timely delivery including funding. The opportunity to be ‘plan lead’ is one of the key factors, alongside the scale of the opportunity, which has succeeded in attracting Government support to date. Planning has already started but there is a long lead in period with a site of this scale. Anticipated adoption of the masterplan is September 2019.

The development area is to the south of the existing built edge of the City on land between J42 of the M6 in the east and the A595 to the west. There is no definitive boundary as yet.

Lauren Newby, associate director at Regeneris Consulting, said: “The success of the Garden Village bid represents an exciting opportunity for Carlisle. It is timely for the study to consider how Carlisle can maximise this opportunity to benefit the local economy and reflect these aspirations in the emerging masterplan. This needs to be set within an appreciation of the wider investment offer presented by Carlisle and the opportunities presented by existing sites. The study builds upon our existing knowledge of sectors as a driver of growth and competitiveness, and has a number of parallels with similar studies we are currently undertaking in Tees Valley, Greater Manchester, the Marches, and London.”