Cumbria Combined Authority
combined authority in North-West England
The Cumbria Combined Authority is a combined authority comprising the unitary authorities of Cumberland Council and Westmorland and Furness Council. It was established on 24 February 2026, and covers the ceremonial county of Cumbria, whose county council was abolished in 2023. The authority will have a directly elected mayor, with elections to be held in May 2027.
Background
Discussions for a devolution deal for the county began before Cumbria County Council's 2023 abolition, with Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Housing, Local Government and Communities expressing his wish to extend devolution to the county, once the process of establishing new councils had completed.
The 2023 restructuring of local government in Cumbria saw the county split into two authorities, essentially East and West, creating the Cumberland, and Westmorland and Furness, authorities. These two new authorities replaced Cumbria County Council, which ceased to exist on 1 April 2023. Its duties, including roads, schools and social services, fell to the newly created authorities.
Devolution deal
A deal put to Cumberland Council and Westmorland and Furness Council in 2025 included more powers and funding for transport, skills and housing through a Devolution Framework, which would transfer some powers currently held by the UK Government to the new combined authority. Five voting members of the combined authority would exist, with four coming from the two councils and one being the directly-elected mayor.
The deal was accepted by both councils on 14 October 2025.
The public source identifies “Cumbria Combined Authority” as combined authority in North-West England. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Cumbria, Combined and Authority.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cumbria Combined Authority” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.