OUR PLAN FOR BARROW
A future for everyone
Our vision
Our vision is to enable Barrow to deliver its role in protecting our nation, expanding our national defence capability, supporting energy security and revitalising Barrow and Furness as a place where people choose to live, work and thrive.
A place that can provide prosperity for all.
The only place in the UK
Barrow is the proud home of our nation’s submarine design and build programme. It is the only place in the UK with the infrastructure, licence, and skilled resources necessary to design and build nuclear-powered submarines.
As it has done for more than 150 years, Barrow will remain central to the UK’s national security strategy for decades to come. However, the successful delivery of submarines is only possible with the right infrastructure, skills and people.
Team Barrow is a collaborative approach that harnesses the skills, funding, and capabilities of the government, local government, BAE Systems, businesses, and the community. This working partnership puts Barrow’s community at the centre while ensuring the delivery of a vital government priority.
Always remembering that it’s the people who make the town – the communities, businesses, schools and charities… the residents, young and old, who call Barrow home.
We need to deliver two core outcomes:
1.
Enable and sustain the Defence Nuclear Enterprise in Barrow efficiently and securely.
2.
Diversify and strengthen Barrow’s economy and increase productivity.
Barrow has a proud heritage of ship and submarine building and innovation, celebrated for the world-class submarines we produce and their role in protecting the nation and its allies. It is an astonishing contribution to the nation, directly from the people of Barrow.
Beyond defence, Barrow is an important centre of advanced manufacturing, growing green industries, and culture. The scale of investment to come, coupled with Barrow’s rich heritage and strong communities, means that a positive future is within our grasp.
The opportunity
The investment in Barrow presents a generational opportunity for the town unlike anywhere else in the country.
If we are to fully capitalise on this opportunity – and achieve maximum local impact and inclusive growth for all – we need to tackle the barriers that might stand in our way.
Housing and town centre
There is a large, ever-growing demand for a better mix of higher-quality, different sized accommodation, good-quality private rental homes, and social housing.
There needs to be better choices for local people and those looking to move to the area—whether buying or renting. We want to ensure Barrow offers a selection of good, sustainable, and affordable housing. Additionally, the town centre needs renewal to provide a much better experience in retail and leisure and an enhanced cultural offer.
Our businesses and local economy
Barrow has innovative and resilient small businesses, but not as many as a town of its size typically would have. It also has a low self-employment rate
These issues are typical of the challenges that can come with the positives of being an industrial town with a well-paying large employer. We need to support and nurture new and small businesses within the Barrow economy and encourage new investment in the town to create a diverse and resilient economy with many employment opportunities.
Education and skills
There are also significant opportunities to enhance the education we offer to children and young people, and position Barrow as a destination of choice for students and skilled professionals.
This is so that Barrow provides opportunities for all and is well-placed to meet long-term economic growth and demand for skilled labour. We know that current skills gaps and shortages are holding economic growth back and that Barrow has high youth unemployment compared to national averages despite vacancies across various sectors.
Health and our communities
As with other parts of the country, people living in Barrow experience barriers and challenges in staying well and maximising their health.
This affects their ability to work and thrive. The town has areas of affluence and deprivation and significant variations in the resulting health outcomes. These are influenced not only by the ability to access services, but the social and economic circumstances in which our residents live.
The geographic position of Barrow and the sparsity of the population across south Cumbria impacts on the resilience and availability of both routine health services and public health support. Recruitment is a sector wide challenge. Rurality and sparsity increase both service delivery cost, and the need for residents to travel.
Yet we have the opportunity to develop better, more integrated services for our communities, to break the inter-generational cycle of ill-health. We can help residents to optimise their health and can support people back into the labour market, improving workforce retention and productivity. If we get this right we can improve life chances for the residents in Barrow, reduce the burden on ill-health on the local system and services and directly support economic prosperity.
Transport
The growth of our town relies on strong transport links that enable and support both local movement and connectivity to the broader region and beyond.
Barrow’s geography has made it the town it is today but its location, coupled with existing connectivity limitations, means it relies on transport networks that lack resilience, speed and quality. With better transport links, living and working in Barrow will become more attractive, and the town can be a key part of a well-connected energy coastline. We have the foundations for this with significant transport assets such as Barrow Port, but we need to improve our roads, rail links and active travel offer.
The need for sustainable development in response to climate change and biodiversity loss applies equally to Barrow as it does across the country. Barrow has the benefit of being surrounded by beautiful coastal natural environment and is host to some significant clean power investment. Therefore as plans are brought forward in response to the issues set out above, there is a need to consider how they can be done in a way that has a sustainable environmental impact, contributing to carbon reduction and nature recovery.
Strategic objectives
Our long-term strategy is to grow Barrow sustainably to meet the needs of our national security priorities, and to maximise the opportunities for those who live in the town and those who will move here.
These strategic objectives provide the guiding focus for Team Barrow and all our plans, priorities, and investments will be designed to deliver one or more of these.
To achieve our vision and the twin outcomes, we have set six strategic objectives:
1
Barrow offers prosperity to all and is recognised nationally as a prosperous and vibrant town, known for its world-class engineering expertise.
2
The people of Barrow are healthy and able to fulfil their potential, enjoying a good quality of life with a sustainable community sector that supports our people to flourish.
3
Barrow offers businesses opportunities to invest and grow, encourages entrepreneurship and provides good and varied earning opportunities.
4
Barrow offers a rich choice of excellent housing that is sustainable and affordable and meets the needs of a diverse community, with a thriving town centre and cultural offer.
5
Barrow’s infrastructure facilitates its economic potential, improves its connectivity, and provides confidence in its reliability.
6
Barrow has a thriving education sector that creates opportunity for all and fuels its economy with increased quality and choice in education.
How we’ll deliver for Barrow
Team Barrow includes UK Government, Westmorland and Furness Council, and BAE Systems, working with all those who contribute to and care about Barrow’s future.
These partners are coming together alongside local communities and stakeholders to deliver transformational growth in Barrow.
To enable this, and in recognition of the critical role that Barrow plays in delivering the Defence Nuclear Enterprise, the Government has made a long-term financial commitment to the town, including:
The 10-year, £200m Barrow Transformation Fund
The £5m Social Impact Fund
The Work and Health Fund
A Delivery Board will oversee and manage the delivery of transformational change in Barrow. It will oversee the allocation of this funding to ensure it is used to best effect and ensure the plans and priorities within Team Barrow deliver maximum impact for the town and our communities.
In doing this it will oversee five work streams that Team Barrow is organised under:
- Economy, Master-planning and Place
- Transport
- Education, Employment and Skills
- Health, Equity and Wellbeing
- Community and Social Impact
Each of these work streams has a dedicated team that collaborates with local partners to develop plans and initiatives.
The Delivery Board will have an independent chair, members drawn from local public and private enterprises, and representatives from central Government, Westmorland and Furness Council, and BAE Systems.
It will ensure that decisions on Barrow’s needs are made locally by the right group of dedicated experts and will deliver on the ambitions set out above.
Feedback and community views will be an inherent part of the decision-making process.
The Delivery Board will report on its progress publicly through updates and meeting summaries posted online.
It will be open and transparent about how it uses public money and what returns it delivers.
The Delivery Board will also report on a six-monthly basis to central Government, who will be able to ensure and advise on whether the vision for Barrow is on track.
A yearly update paper will be produced, charting our progress so far.
Through the Team Barrow partners and the funding committed, we will use a range of tools available to us to:
1
Directly fund interventions in partnership with other public and private sector partners, particularly using the Barrow Transformation Fund as a catalyst to attract and leverage other investments.
2
Identify and unblock factors preventing real progress and try to sort them – wherever we find them.
3
Use funding to plug gaps preventing our vital sectors from thriving and projects from progressing.
4
Develop policy changes that work towards the delivery of our objectives.
5
Look at ways to invest in initiatives where our funding unlocks private finance, which will be repaid when the projects go live.
6
Work with the private sector to identify growth and investment opportunities.
7
Use funding to research and analyse issues to identify ways to solve them; we will work with academics, our community and voluntary sector, and other local partners on this.
8
Communicate and engage widely and effectively to spread the word about Barrow’s future and to generate interest and investment in the town.
Progress so far
Our vision for Barrow has already begun, and will build on investments made in the town through #BrilliantBarrow.
These investments include Marina Village, which will provide at least 800 new homes, a nature conservation area and new public spaces; the Learning Quarter, which brings improvements to Furness College and a brand-new university campus; and the Heart of Barrow, which will help to revitalise the town centre, through the remodelling of the market.
These investments include Marina Village, which will provide 808 new homes, a nature conservation area and new public spaces; the Learning Quarter, which brings improvements to Furness College and a brand-new university campus; and the Heart of Barrow, which will help to revitalise the town centre, through the remodelling of the market.
Beyond this, progress through Team Barrow has been made in a number of areas:
Homes England has started work to map the wider needs and opportunities for housing and infrastructure in Barrow.
We are launching the £5m Social Impact Fund to give long-term surety to Barrow’s community and voluntary sector, allowing them to deliver provision more strategically and efficiently.
We are shortly launching the Work and Health fund to support activities that help our residents return to work so they can truly fulfil their potential.
BAE Systems has invested in a career inspiration hub in Barrow’s town centre (Portland Walk), with the aim of providing support to individuals looking for information about employment and training opportunities. Wider employers can also use this space free of charge to highlight their opportunities; organisations like Oxley’s, the Submarine Delivery Agency, and Securitas have already taken advantage of this great hub.
The government conducted a bespoke recruitment campaign for local work coaches, meaning that Barrow Jobcentre Plus is now better able to meet the needs of different groups.
BAE Systems has supported a range of projects that aim to improve the skills and qualifications of adults. An example includes the development of a Digital Skills Bootcamp in response to a local need for skilled IT roles, which are specifically not designed for BAE Systems; the first cohort ran in September 2024, and a second cohort will run in February 2025.
Construction on the Grizebeck Bypass began in September 2024. It is a 1.4km single-carriageway, 60mph road between Chapels and Grizebeck that will reduce bottlenecks and improve connectivity for people and freight into and out of Barrow.
Development of plans for subsequent phases of active travel improvements in line with the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan.
Local and community
involvement
The community, its strengths, and aspirations are central to Team Barrow’s work, and their input is not only welcomed but essential to its success.
We know that we cannot be successful without our community because it’s the people who make Barrow the place it is.
Positive change
Team Barrow is committed to working alongside the community sector and communities to understand what matters most, to ensure people’s views influence the decision-making of Team Barrow and inform the design and delivery of the work.
The starting point of Team Barrow’s community engagement outlines how the community sector and community members can become involved and shape and own the vision of Team Barrow, enabling positive change for the benefit of everyone.
Team Barrow will host a series of engagements, to enable people to find out more about us and our future plans while giving them the opportunity to share their opinions, ideas, and perspectives, influence our work, and become involved.
Next steps
Following engagement with local partners and our community and further work to develop proposals that build on the foundations set out in this document, we will present a more detailed Plan for Barrow in Spring next year.
This plan will include more in-depth information on the opportunities, priority initiatives, and longer-term plans.
