Westmorland and Furness

Westmorland and Furness is a unitary authority area in Cumbria, England, which means that is a non-metropolitan county and district. The economy is mainly focused on tourism around both the Lake District and Cumbria Coast, shipbuilding and the port in Barrow-in-Furness, and agriculture in the rural parts of the area. The council area formed on 1 April 2023, on the abolition of Cumbria County Council The council covers the areas formerly served by the districts of Barrow-in-Furness, Eden, and South Lakeland, which also ceased to function. It includes all of the area of the historic county of Westmorland as well as the Furness district of historic Lancashire. It also incorporates a very small part of historic Yorkshire, together with about a quarter of the area of (but only 10% of the population of) the historic county of Cumberland. The other part of Cumbria, to the north and west, forms the unitary authority area of Cumberland. The first elections to the new authority took place in May 2022, with the Westmorland and Furness Council acting as a 'shadow authority' until the abolition of the three former districts and Cumbria County Council on 1 April 2023. Background Elections to Cumbria County Council were due to take place in May 2021; however, they were postponed for one year by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government due to a consultation on local government reorganisation in the area. In July 2021, the government announced that the current authorities in Cumbria would be abolished and replaced with two unitary authorities, with an east/west split of the county.