Westmorland and Furness
Circular rural resilience
Lead Organisation
Westmorland and Furness Council
Location
North West
Westmorland and Furness puts circularity and low-carbon enterprise at the heart of rural resilience.
When Westmorland and Furness Council was created in April 2023, climate action was embedded from the start as a way to deliver better jobs, cleaner air, and stronger community resilience.
As one of England’s most rural unitary authorities, with a strong reliance on agriculture and tourism, the area risked rising food and fuel costs, extreme weather impacts, and missed investment without action.
With £150,000 from Innovate UK’s Net Zero Living programme, the council identified local barriers, from food systems to green finance, and delivered practical solutions. It launched Place to Plate to support low-carbon farming and tourism, opened a Circular Economy Hub for repair and reuse, and created a new role to lead on Green Finance and Circular Economy projects.
Partners like Future Proof Cumbria and Cumbria Tourism are now helping scale this approach across the county.
Find out more
If you are interested in learning how to transform your community, town or city, then read the Enable Embed Enact – Maximising the Value of Local Net Zero Planning report. If you would like to speak to someone about this project, contact the Net Zero Living team.