Darwen Hotspots: Towering ambition

Blackburn with Darwen is the next stop on our tour of Lancashire’s hotspots. We brought leaders from business, local government and education together at the offices of Pierce. Regeneration and levelling up cash were high on the agenda.

Present

Truly transformational – the impressive £100m Darwen Town Deal continues to gather momentum driven by the desire to create lasting change.

The positive headlines around the deal continue to come thick and fast. In May the green light was given to plans for a groundbreaking manufacturing and research centre on a five-acre site at Chapels.

Talks are progressing with Sheffield University’s AMRC to be the anchor tenant there – housing its first-of-its-kind Additive Manufacturing Accelerator and pioneering additive and 3D printing technology.

Perspex International, a major employer in the town, is also developing plans to expand its neighbouring site with a proposed new £30m national manufacturing centre there – again, with support from the deal.

The deal’s vision centres around key themes including town centre regeneration, employment growth and business innovation as well as Darwen as a visitor destination. Plans also include a new sports village and connectivity through ultrafast fibre broadband.

The investment figures are impressive, with more than £20m for Darwen Market, its library and theatre and to upgrade Darwen Youth Centre. And now there is a further £20m of new funding available through the government’s Long-Term Plan for Towns scheme.

The town is one of just 55 from across the country to have been awarded the cash from this particular pot and a new board has been formed to help prioritise how that funding can be best spent.

Council leader Phil Riley says the town deal is already making its mark. “We’re already noticing the difference,” he says, describing the sports village development as “phenomenal”.

He adds: “If you looked across the country at the 50-odd places that have got these town deals I’d be very surprised if there is anyone that has made a better job of it.

“We’ve got Perspex relocating in the town. They had a choice to go to Barcelona or stay in Darwen. They stayed in Darwen.

“The manufacturing and research centre is an extraordinary thing really and an opportunity for really serious skills sets and we’re just about to start the developments around the market hall and town centre.

“The ‘Destination Darwen’ project has enabled everybody to look at its strengths as a compact market town with a very lively life and a lot of new entrants.”

Nicola Clayton is Blackburn College’s director of business development and external engagement and a member of the Darwen long-term plan board.

She says that around 800 students from Darwen study at the college, which has strong links with major employers in the town such as Herbert Parkinson and WEC.

The college also has plans to set up a base in the town delivering adult skills and courses for 16-19-year-olds. Nicola adds: “We are very much looking forward to working in partnership with everybody to support Darwen.”

Hannah Allen is chief executive of Blackburn and Darwen Youth Zone, which has been highly active in the town, engaging with young people and working to reduce anti-social behaviour.

Work is currently underway on the £3.3m transformation of the town’s youth centre which will double its size.

The extension will pave the way for state-of-the￾art facilities, including a new creative workshop space, recording and DJ studio, gaming zone and multi-use spaces and upgraded outdoor sports facilities.

Hannah believes the £100m town deal has made Darwen “an equal partner” with neighbouring Blackburn and points to the next £20m raft of cash coming. She is also a member of the new board looking at how to spend it.

Stephanie Ashcroft, co-founder of Darwen based web design and market company Fruity Llama, hopes that housing will be part of the next stage of investment. She says: “There are a lot of young professionals and young families that want two-bedroom high-end flats. Darwen is massively missing flats and apartments.” She has other things on her shopping list.

Darwen is known for its bars, pubs and vibrant night-time economy. But Stephanie believes there needs to be more alternative attractions. She says: “We need a local cinema. We need more facilities.

“The town deal is delivering gamechangers and that’s why we need the infrastructure and the housing. We need everything to pull together so we can prosper.”

Mick Smith, social landlord Together Housing’s group director of commercial services, also sits on the new long-term plan board. He says the housing challenge is a borough wide one.

He explains: “From a Together Housing point of view, we’ve got more demand for housing than we’ve got properties available, so there is a need for more across the borough.

“We are investing in new homes, we’ve got a number of sites, including in Darwen where we’re building currently, but it’s a challenge for us that there’s more people wanting homes.”

Council leader Phil Riley says there has been an “explosion” in owner-occupation on peripheral sites in Darwen, with evidence showing at least half of the people moving onto the new housing estates coming from Manchester and Bolton, or even further afield.

However, he adds that there is a lot of poor quality private rented accommodation in the town and a strategy is needed to tackle that problem, including the demolition of properties.

He says: “If you want to create some brownfield sites, you’ve got to knock some stuff down.”

And he adds: “Over the last 25 or 30 years, government policy has ended up pushing private rented and it’s not done anything to help organisations like Mick’s, and we’ve noticed it.”