Page 28 - Barrow Town Deal Board Agenda 14/4/2020

Barrow Town Investment Plan - Stakeholder Insight Report

Table 3.1 Thematic Opportunity Analysis
Theme Summary point
Urban • Barrow’s natural capital (green infrastructure, waterfront, beaches) needs to be harnessed to support quality of life,
Regeneration & health and well-being, outdoor education, and facilitate the visitor economy.
Land Use • Marina Village presents an opportunity to create a new neighbourhood and aspirational housing offer in the town.
Other new housing developments in Hawcoat and Holbeck have also helped to improve the aspirational housing
offer and housing mix in recent years.
• How can Barrow facilitate investment in existing housing stock, particularly energy efficiency measures?
• The Future High Street bid will support new uses for the town centre and drive vitality.
• Through the impact of COVID19 is there scope to lobby for support for town centres? “for example a fundamental
review of business rates, or consideration of Enterprise Zone approaches to business rates relief?”
• Barrow needs to create a destination that supports the hospitality sector at the weekend (contractor demand helps
to sustain activity mid-week). Barrow has an emerging event offer, a good choice of hotels, but needs to develop a
stronger night time economy and food offer.
• Barrow has a relatively healthy industrial market with high levels of occupation driven by both local requirements
and BAE. Demand is high for freehold tenure in particular.
• There is demand for managed workspace, with Harding Rise House about to come forward to provide grow-on
space and enable incubator units such as Phoenix Business Centre to run more effectively.
• Barrow’s office market is “tricky”. The demand for space is somewhat limited. Many of the major companies in the
town have professional services companies like KPMG servicing their needs from office bases further afield, and
as a result the professional services sector locally is largely serving the local SME base. They are often located in
older and more traditional premises and own the freehold. There is a dearth of quality office stock, and a lot of this
is older space above shops, converted 1970s premises, and very little new development. The last new builds are
fully let (Emlyn Hughes House and Furness Gate).
• Increase in demand for serviced residential accommodation linked to contractor demand has helped to bring old
buildings back into use. However, it is perceived that this market is now “reaching its limit” and as the short-term
contractor demand in the shipyard wanes, so will demand for this type of accommodation.
Skills & • Career inspiration initiatives seek to engage children from a young age to inspire them to consider career
Enterprise opportunities in Barrow’s future growth sectors. It was noted that the current crisis may inspire more people to
consider a career in health and social care.
• The LEP have a marketing campaign targeting returners to come back and live in Cumbria based on affordability,
quality of life, natural capital, education etc… Barrow needs to align its messaging around this.

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