A councillor is calling on her community to fight further development in the area and push for a bypass to take the strain off a congested west Cumbrian route.

Hilary Harrington, who represents Harrington on the town and district council, called a public meeting at the village's community hall on Thursday night to discuss plans for new housing developments.

More than 30 people heard her rallying call for people to comment on Allerdale Council's draft local plan, which identifies areas suitable for housing and business development, as part of its consultation.

In High Harrington, land at Whins Farm, off Main Road, has been earmarked by the council for housing. Story Homes has already applied for a screening opinion to see whether an Environmental Impact Assessment would be needed to accompany any planning application at the site, which could accommodate up to 120 homes and a play area.

Mrs Harrington believes people need to make their voices heard and listed problems with the plans including traffic, oversubscribed local schools and the urgent need for an update to the infrastructure - particularly a bypass around the A597.

She said: "Now is the time for action. Our biggest problem is the road itself.

"It was a B road, they upgraded it to an A road and now it's turning in to a motorway."

Mrs Harrington is due to speak in front of the county council's local committee for Allerdale at Moorclose Community Centre on Thursday and asked people to attend to support her with placards and banners.

She added: "I honestly do feel, in a quiet way, we need to stand up and say enough is enough."

She also wants to resurrect her campaign for a bypass, which has previously included a petition and former Workington MP Tony Cunningham writing to the Transport Secretary.

Ken Wright, of Ruskin Close, pointed to the Save Our Beds campaign in Maryport as an example of how the community should come together to fight further development and get plans for a bypass back on the table.

Mike McShane, also of Ruskin Close, believes allowing development on the sites in the local plan to go ahead would add more than 100,000 journeys each year to a road already struggling to cope with traffic.

Many people at the meeting agreed that an up-to-date traffic count needed to be carried out to find out the current number of vehicles using the A597.