Communities put heritage on the map in Barrow-in-Furness

RSA Heritage Index inspires local people to highlight borough’s extraordinary natural, industrial and maritime heritage assets

Maddi Nicholson, Director of arts collective Art Gene

At the south-west edge of the Lake District on the Irish Sea, Barrow is best known for its shipbuilding, its skilled labour force and offshore wind farms. It is also well known for high levels of deprivation and health problems. What is little known though, is that Barrow comes top of all 325 English boroughs for the quality of its landscapes and the number of its nature reserves.

Our plan focuses on all possible ways of connecting our communities with the extraordinary natural, industrial and military heritage assets around our islands and bays, so that Barrow will finally be acknowledged nationally as a great destination to live and work.

Our team, led by a local arts company, represents a diverse collection of organisations and individuals. So far over 20 stakeholder groups, ranging from the councils to employers, retailers to volunteer groups, health services to nature reserves, have been consulted to help develop the outline plan.

Our starting point is a green infrastructure plan to support and enhance current business and social initiatives. This will shape a number of potential community-led projects to make environmental improvements and new connections to existing green spaces.

Project ideas include the promotion of a heritage iron coast, a scheme for blue plaques to highlight significant Furness people, and studies of the town’s shipbuilding heritage and of industrial housing. We’ve had ideas for new interpretation places for military sites from both world wars. A Furness Ranger role could be developed to encourage volunteers to help at nature sites.

Another local activist contributing to the Coastal Team, Charlie MacKeith, added:

“The RSA Heritage Index has allowed us to understand the national significance of the place, given us a focus to promote the development of a centre of excellence, and gained the confidence of a range of local stakeholders — from the police to NHS clinical commissioners, from industry to nature reserves — that we might not have been able to draw in otherwise.”

Read more in the North West Evening Mail

Maddi Nicholson, Director of arts collective Art Gene, leads a Coastal Team for Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, a community coalition. £10,000 from the government has gone to help develop a town plan. With local people inspired by a strong showing in the RSA’s Heritage Index, Maddi explains how the team wants to embed heritage learning and engagement.