Page 12 - Barrow Town Deal Board Agenda 14/4/2020

Barrow Town Investment Plan - Stakeholder Insight Report

Theme Summary point
competition between providers is recognised and the market share between FE and HE needs to be
considered to get the right balance and support collaborative working”.
• A HE Campus in Barrow will help to address a lack of willingness of young people in Barrow to
travel outside the town to learn.
• Barrow has a supressed entrepreneurial culture as a result of large dominant employers and a lack
of entrepreneur role models. More career inspiration activity is required to change local perceptions
on the opportunities presented by self-employment and business start-ups. How can BAE do more
to support local businesses to access their supply chain?
• Internships and placements within Barrow’s business base for young people can inform young
people’s understanding of the breadth of opportunity on offer, helping to retain young people as well
as demonstrating to employers the value of employing local people, graduates etc.
• Barrow is currently poorly served by business support. A lack of match funding in recent years has
made it difficult for ERDF programmes to be delivered in Barrow, although ways around this is
sought. There is a big gap if beneficiaries are not unemployed, not looking at subsidy, or are not
looking to grow. There has been historic confusion over roles in the delivery of business support in
Barrow (Furness Enterprise, FEDF, Chamber etc), the availability of match funding, and questions
over the effectiveness of current provision. There is a need for an independent review across the
county to ensure impartial advice is being given and businesses are being directed to appropriate
support. “Cumbria needs to offer a more coordinated and impartial business support eco-system”.
“The current landscape is ad-hoc and not enough is being done to leverage funding and referrals”.
• A lot of current and future job opportunities in Barrow respond to major investments requiring
technical and higher level skills. One commentator noted the counter-intuitive nature of the fact that
“BAE have trebled their workforce but there has been no change to deprivation or workless families
in the town”. Many disadvantaged residents do not have the skills to access these opportunities.
The provision of both basic/intermediate skill support and lower level employment opportunities is
key to facilitating access to work.
Connectivity • Public transport connections into the town are limited and need to be improved. Public transport
provision often doesn’t support those on shift patterns, and there are affordability barriers for lower
income earners to access this provision.
• The roads are perceived to be too dangerous to encourage cycling and cycle paths “are poor”.
• How can transport and movement within Barrow be improved? “BAE is a significant contributor to
movement, congestion and parking issues in the town”: major employers have a role to play in

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