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A public inquiry into the controversial plans for a £165m colliery on the St Bees coast is to start in September.

Consultations are underway on four competing bids to reorganise local government in Cumbria and parts of Lancashire, to improve service delivery and simplify boundaries between councils and places.

Dockside sites, along with land at Carlisle Lake District Airport, are central to the Heart of the UK Freeport plan advanced by the area's Local Enterprise Partnership. 

Government backing of £20m through the Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal has been confirmed, enabling work to move forward on the improvement of the railway station and its approaches.

Barrow Council, Lancaster City Council and South Lakeland District Council would be replaced with a single-tier unitary authority, under the plans revealed in October.

Carlisle Lake District Airport is to receive a Government grant of up to £8m, a sum that would effectively wipe out its business rates bill for 2020-21.

Blackpool, Barrow-in-Furness and Warrington are among the first seven locations to have funding bids accepted as part of the Government’s much-vaunted levelling-up programme.

The local authorities of Barrow, Lancaster and South Lakeland have confirmed their support to progress a process that could lead to a formal bid for a new unitary council governing Morecambe Bay.

A Cumbria County Council cabinet report has asked that chief executive Katherine Fairclough be authorised to submit a business case to Government that would see it and six district councils replaced by a new body.