Just over a year ago Business Crack spoke to the chief executive of Westmorland and Furness Council on the eve of a Government announcement confirming long-awaited ‘once in several generations’ investment worth millions of pounds in Barrow.
The creation of Team Barrow along with the formation of the council itself were two of the major developments during her time in charge.
Now, as Sam Plum prepares to hand over the reins to a new chief executive, she’s been talking to Nigel Thompson about the changes she has seen and her hopes for the future.
These are times of change for Barrow where in September King Charles came to mark the port’s royal status while work on Astute and Dreadnought submarines at BAE Systems was also the subject of celebrations.
Walk around the town and you can see movement; The Forum and the town’s market may well be closed, pending major refurbishment, but Cooke’s Studios on Abbey Road look bright and inviting having undergone recent renovation work while a new cafe has opened within the impressive town hall.
And a few flights of stairs above it, in an office overlooking the town centre and every present shipyard beyond, the women who has steered Barrow Borough and more recently Westmorland and Furness councils was in buoyant mood when we met.
“It was last November when we had the first board meeting of Team Barrow with Simon Case there as interim chair, because it hadn’t been confirmed that he was going to be chair, but we were desperate to get going and it has been a really great year,” Sam said as we started our conversation by remembering our meeting a year ago.
Just days after that interview the Government finally signalled investment in the town bringing together as Team Barrow the council, government and BAE Systems.
“We’re now fully into that business case development, because you can’t just say, ‘right, I’ll have one of those’ without saying, ‘well I’ll have one of those and this is the difference it’ll make and this is why this is the right thing to do’ so we’ve got to be absolutely clear that we’re being evidence-led and the things that the funding goes to is going to make the difference we want to see. I think we’ll start really seeing delivery come the new year in some of those big areas, which is fantastic.”
While specific dates of delivery are yet be confirmed the ambition contained within Team Barrow’s 10 year plan certainly is.
Thousands of new homes built to a high standard, town centre occupancy amongst the highest in England, an increase in well-paid jobs along with a significant reduction in life expectancy inequality are among the aims now agreed.
The urgency for change remains and the chief says it can’t come soon enough.
“Absolutely not and if you think about why we’ve got Team Barrow it’s really important for Barrow as a place, for our residents and also as the home of BAE Systems and what they do and how we really need to ensure that Barrow as a place attracts and supports people through the right infrastructure right education and has the right skills offer so BAE can thrive.
“I think the fortunes of Barrow and the shipyard have always been absolutely intertwined, and when one’s thriving the other’s thriving, but when one’s having some bad luck the other one is down.
“I think at the moment the shipyard’s thriving and the town just needs to catch up, and we’ve not quite caught up yet, and that’s the big push for Team Barrow I think,” Sam said.
The fact Team Barrow is working on a 10-year plan is a game-changer according to the chief executive.
Shorter term plans and smaller amounts of investment have led to a reduction in impact.
Initiatives are, she says ‘just getting going really’ because of the time it takes to mobilise support whereas the 10-year scope of Team Barrow is ‘critical’ adding the ‘unique partnership of a council, a significant employer, and government really helps because we’ve got direct line into all government departments.’
“I think it will have a transformational impact on this place,” is how she sums up the vision.
But even with £200m and a decade to spend it, there are those who say it isn’t ambitious enough.
When asked by the Barrow and Furness MP Michelle Scrogham during his appearance at a recent Defence Committee whether he thought the investment was sufficient, Steve Timms, MD of BAE Systems Submarines, said it did not go far enough.
“£200 million sounds like a lot of money but actually, because it’s a 10-year programme, it is only £20 million a year for 10 years,” Sam points out.
“Westmorland and Furness Council’s capital programme for this financial year is £130 million for one year.
“That’s how much we’re spending on capital projects, whether it’s highways, maintenance to our existing buildings, new buildings etc.
“So if you compare that to £20 million a year for 10 years it won’t touch the sides in terms of some of the transformation we need to see but that’s not the point.
“It’s not going to fix all the problems, and it was never going to fix all the problems. I think what it is about is using that as a hook and a lever to draw in additional funding from other government departments, private investors and lots of different places.
“And there will be some significant funding into some specific things, but it needs private investment and it needs development.
“One of the big things that we need to do in Barrow is grow our population of working age adults.
“We need new homes, new houses and while we’re not going to be paying for them we can facilitate that. We can have the right sites and enable the planning processes to be as smooth as possible but it will be developers that come in and invest in building new houses in Barrow. ”
In May last year Westmorland and Furness Council joined Cumberland Council, Enterprise Cumbria and others in appearing at the national UK Real Estate and Infrastructure Forum which was held in Leeds.
The event brings developers, businesses, inward investment companies, construction companies, local authorities together to consider opportunities across the UK.
Interest in development opportunities in and around Barrow was, she says, significant.
“They were queued out of the door; there was a real buzz,” Sam recalls.
“There was a real sense that something different is happening here and developers are really wanting to come and work with us. As a local authority, our biggest site and our biggest opportunity in Barrow is Marina Village which we’ve been trying to pull that site together as a development site for many years.
“It’s been quite tortuous for all sorts of different reasons. And it’s a brownfield site with significant issues and contamination that have all had to be remediated so that it’s fit to build housing on.
“But we’re at the cusp now of actually going to work with a developer to develop that site. We had a really strong field of applicants from national, really well-renowned, innovative developers who do want to come and work with us in Barrow.”
It’s a big difference from even just a few years ago when any large scale new housing was ruled out.
“When I started here, our local plan hardly had any housing sites in it because the population was declining.” Sam says.
“The Government planning department was saying, ‘no, you don’t need new houses in Barrow because your population is dropping’.
“And that’s flipped so much in six years that suddenly people are taking notice and seeing Barrow as a real opportunity for development.”
Walking through the town centre to our interview the well known names that used to occupy it have, as in so many other towns, largely gone. So what is the plan to entice traders and shoppers back as well as the people Team Barrow hope will live their too?
“There was a Debenhams when I came here six years ago, Portland Walk was full of high street chains, The Forum and market were open and buzzing and now all those things have shifted,“ Sam said.
“The Forum and the market are part of Westmorland and Furness Council and we have got a levelling up fund for those but actually the town deal and the Barrow funding gives us an opportunity to really think about what do we want in terms of culture, shopping experience, food and beverage and the night-time economy.
“This isn’t just about Barrow – I could be talking about Kendal, Penrith – anywhere.
“It’s about places where people want to come in and spend time and spend money. But I think that that’s shifted quite a bit. And I think it was happening anyway in terms of online shopping but I think COVID really, really accelerated that.”
So can visitors be tempted back as well as people who may well choose to relocate to the town?
“I think there is something about attracting people as visitors that we need to think about. But I think the population itself needs to grow so the number of working age adults that live and work here, put their kids in our schools, go shopping, go for a drink or a bite to eat after work – that’s the bit that really needs to grow for me,” Sam told me.
“We’ve got a population just in the town of about 56,000. At its peak it was about 75,000 so that’s how much it’s dropped in the last 30 years and I think we need to get back to that peak.
” And then if there are that many working age adults in the town that are working, that can spend the money, they want an offer.
“Our resident population, those 56,000 people, at the moment haven’t got access to services that they want and need. So how do we ensure that they’ve got access to those services by attracting other things to come back that we might have lost over the last 30 years? That’s the challenge.”
The former Debenhams shop, once an ‘anchor’ retail unit in Portland Walk, is now owned by BAE Systems and will become a training centre.
The company has already converted what was WH Smiths into The Bridge, a careers hub in the town centre.
It’s hoped repurposing some retail space will signal a change in emphasis as shipyard workers no longer remain across Devonshire Dock but instead look to buy food and drink in the town centre. With up to 600 people predicted to be using the new centre the impact could be significant.
“Hopefully when the market is reopened and there’s a vibrant food offering there and a bit of later into the evening entertainment and other things going on, that’s going to give a huge footfall which will give confidence to businesses that it’s worth investing here,” Sam predicted.
“I think if you can signal that it’s going to change, people will come, and businesses will take that risk and invest.
“We just need to really make sure that that happens now. In terms of the Forum and the market, we have got levelling up funding, so we secured £90 million to renovate the market, look at the food offer, look at children’s soft play space in there, look at doing up the front so it was more modern and more attractive.
“And then with Team Barrow, I think there is a real opportunity to continue with that, but look at the whole of the heart of Barrow.”
With a nod to the AUKUS project, the trilateral partnership between Australia, UK and USA, there is hope that people from overseas coming and learning their trade here. Together with students studying at the newly opened University of Cumbria campus there is a need for smaller apartments in Barrow.
“I think that heart of Barrow has got a real opportunity to look at more housing specifically accommodation in terms of one, two bedroom apartments that are modern and attractive,” Sam said.
“If you had that next to a theatre and a market and other shops and other retail and BAE’s development, you’ve suddenly got a really vibrant town centre, and that will start to bring in other investment and other major players to work alongside us.”
The chief executive concedes that the project is still in its infancy but with more to come in the coming months says there is confidence that the plans so far signal ‘a massive transformational change for Barrow.’
“Pace is absolutely critical – we have to do it quickly,” she adds. “It wasn’t initially part of our plan to close the Forum, but we’ve had to do that for a number of different reasons but what we didn’t want to do was take all of those facilities away so the cafe, which was an integral part of the Forum has now been moved to the town hall and it’s fantastic!
“It’s full of people and buzz. We are looking at other buildings that we can use while we’re waiting for that redevelopment in the town centre.
“With the Forum on Tour it’s actually going to places who wouldn’t see live performances.”
While Barrow has caught the headlines the town has not monopolised the chief’s time.
The merger of Eden, South Lakeland and Barrow Borough councils to form Westmorland and Furness is a reorganisation that is still bedding in and has created a diverse – not to mention geographically challenging – area.
“We got the call from government to say, ‘OK, local government reorganisation, get your bids in’ whilst we were still in COVID lockdown so quite a lot of our meetings early on were all on Teams because we couldn’t physically be together in the room,” Sam said, recalling the challenge set.
“It’s about five years since we got our outline business cases in for how we wanted to split Cumbria so it has been a journey that I feel like I’ve been living and breathing for quite a long time now.
“Knitting together district councils is one thing but separating a county council in half is absolutely huge. I’ve worked in counties and districts and big METs and unitaries, and I do believe that unitary councils and one organisation being responsible for all local government services in an area is the right thing to do.
“Westmoreland and Furness is really diverse and is one of the most sparsely populated councils in the country, if not the most sparsely populated. By area, it’s the fourth biggest unitary in the country.”
And the size of the area she is currently responsible for is not lost on Sam, a resident of Walney Island.
“If I drive up to Alston, which is the far end of our patch, it takes me about two-and-a-quarter hours and you drive through such a changing and different landscape on the way with different issues and different pressures and different opportunities.” Sam says.
“What we’ve been trying to do as Westmorland and Furness since before we even existed was be really clear about our purpose and really clear about what we want to see for our place and what we think the priorities are for our place.
“We set off with the vision that Westmorland and Furness is a great place to live, work and thrive.”
The results of a recent peer review where council officers from other authorities assess how Westmorland and Furness is facing were released earlier this month.
Did they make for good reading?
“I’ve been doing sessions all this week through leadership and other events to talk to staff about the review which has 17 recommendations in it.
“So what do we do next? What’s the next journey? I think when we went live on April 1 2023 I was really clear with Councillor Jonathan Brook – the council leader – that this is a long journey now.
“We said at the time it’s probably between seven and 10 years of transformation before Westmorland and Furness feels like a mature organisation that’s firing on all cylinders and really delivering for its residents.
” And this is year three, so we’re three years in. I think that review gives us obvious levers, hooks and handles to say ‘OK, so what do we need to do now and what’s our next three-year transformation programme? Is it time to refresh that council plan now that we know ourselves and know our place a little bit better? Do we need to focus on different things?’
“And there will be a period of time over the next kind of six to 12 months of planning that next transformation journey so that we can absolutely realise the benefits of being a unitary organisation.”
And with that three-year journey about to start, Sam has decided now is the right time to pass on the baton.
Her successor has been named as Miranda Cannon who joins the council from a director role Salford Council.
With a home on Walney and now settled in the area, at the end of the year Sam will be handing in her lanyard and heading off for what she says is ‘a delayed gap year.’
While she is not ruling out a return to the world of work, with two daughters, two Labradors and a husband who is also set to retire life a change of pace is at the forefront her mind.
