New 10,000 home garden village 'longer-term plan'

Plans to create a new garden village with 10,000 homes is a long-term project, a council leader has warned.

The St Cuthbert's Garden Village Local Plan was approved by Cumberland Council on Tuesday and will now be put to public consultation.

Labour leader of the council Mark Fryer warned the development would not appear any time soon, saying "it's a much longer-term plan".

"You're not going to see 10,000 homes plonked on the south of Carlisle in the next two or three years," he told BBC Radio Cumbria.

It will be created to the south of Carlisle, close to where a new major link road, the Caldew Crossing, is being built, proposals state.

The development is expected to take between 30 and 40 years to build.

Councillors voted to publish the Local Plan for the scheme and ask the public what they thought of the plans.

If given the go-ahead, the village would be the size of Penrith.

It would include commercial, retail and employment space as well as five new primary schools and a secondary school.

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