Draft Design Code Consultation 2025 - Long Survey

Overview

Background to the Draft Design Code

We have prepared a Draft Design Code following earlier community engagement where you told us about your views on design for Westmorland and Furness. Responses to this early engagement were published in our Design Code Early Engagement Report (December 2024)

Once adopted the Design Code will become a Supplementary Planning Document used to help shape the design of future developments. While the Design Code contains detailed technical guidance, it is built around clear values that reflect what our communities told us matters most.

The introductory section of the Draft Design Code identifies the document’s vision and values, provides guidance on how to use the Design Code and an overview of the identity of the district. The remainder of the document is divided up into sections that set out detailed codes for key development types, including development of new homes, conversions of barns and larger buildings, house extensions and business development including shopfronts, and rural diversification.

Each chapter is accompanied by corresponding Context and Compliance Checklists. The draft Design Code is supported by a number of accompanying documents.

All the documents subject to this consultation are embedded in the survey or can be accessed independently via the Design Code project page

Digital Design Code

The final Design Code will be a digital document, making it a user-friendly online tool. 

How to share your views

This long survey is designed to collect your views on the detailed codes and associated guidance contained within the Draft Design Code.

If you don't want to dig into the detail of the codes, you can complete our short survey that introduces and covers some of the big ideas in the Design Code. Details of this are available on our Design Code project page

You can also visit one of our in-person drop-in events - for more information, see our Design Code project page