Cumberland Council is the local authority for

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 19 ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is a

unitary authority A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...

, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. Although legally the council is a district council as set out in the change order that created it. The area has no county council. It was first elected in May 2022 and operated as a shadow authority until taking up its powers on 1 April 2023. Cumberland Council replaced

Cumbria County Council Cumbria County Council is the county council for the non-metropolitan county of Cumbria in the North West of England. Established in April 1974, following its first elections held the previous year, it is an elected local government body respon ...

Allerdale Borough Council Allerdale is a non-metropolitan district of Cumbria, England, with borough status. Its council is based in Workington and the borough has a population of 93,492 according to the 2001 census, increasing to 96,422 at the 2011 Census. The Bor ...

Carlisle City Council The City of Carlisle ( , ) is a local government district of Cumbria, England, with the status of a city and non-metropolitan district. It is named after its largest settlement, Carlisle, but covers a far larger area which includes the towns ...

and

Copeland Borough Council Copeland or Copeland's may refer to: Places Australia * Copeland, New South Wales Canada * Copeland Islands (Nunavut) * Copeland Islands Marine Provincial Park, in the Strait of Georgia, British Columbia * Mount Copeland, also Copeland Ridge ...

History

The council was created as part of the 2019–2023 structural changes to local government in England.

Branding

The council logo was approved at a meeting of the shadow executive on 20 July 2022. The logo draws on symbols found on the

flag A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design empl ...

and coat of arms of the traditional county of

. It features a Parnassus flower, the traditional county flower, wavy lines which represent the fells, mountains, lakes and coast of the council area and the colours blue and green, which are the livery colours of the traditional county. The council's flag consists of the emblem, without the text, on a white background.

Politics

The first election to Cumberland Council was held on 5 May 2022. All 46 seats were up for election.

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

won 30 seats, giving it a majority. Conservatives have 7 seats, Liberal Democrats 4 seats, Independents 3 seats and Green Party 2 seats. Turnout was 36.1%. In March 2023, one Labour councillor defected to the Liberal Democrats. In June 2023, councillor Trevor Allison defected from the Liberal Democrats to the Conservative Party citing "a drift in the direction of the local liberals, away from community and towards petty politics and trying to score cheap political points".

Composition

References

External links

Cumberland CouncilCumberland Council on TwitterCumberland Joint CommitteeTwo New Councils for Cumbria
{{Unitary authorities of England Local education authorities in England Local authorities in Cumbria Unitary authority councils of England Cumberland (unitary authority)