Abbey Road Gateway Townscape Heritage Initiative
.jpg "104 Abbey Road front elevation")
.jpg "Picture of 104 Abbey Road")
Before: 2009
After: 2011
Barrow Borough Council is working with Heritage Lottery Fund and
English Heritage to bring about urban renewal to what was once one
of Barrow's most beautiful town centre areas.
Several grants will be made available to property owners
on Abbey Road. The scheme applies to some buildings on Abbey
Road, from the Rawlinson Street and Holker Street crossroad to
Ramsden Square roundabout. The scheme runs until March 2012.
English Heritage visited Barrow in 2006 at the request of the
Borough Council, as part of a bid for grant funding to carry
out improvement work. English Heritage representatives chose
several key buildings that they would like to see brought back into
full use. They identified the work they would like to see done,
totalling £2.8m. A grant of 38% (£1,080,000) of the total
estimated cost was offered towards this work by Heritage
Lottery Fund (HLF) www.hlf.org.uk . The Borough
Council pledged to match the HLF contribution pound for pound,
without which the scheme could not go ahead. An initial application
for NWDA funding was successful. The first building to benefit was
The Duke of Edinburgh Hotel www.dukeofedinburghhotel.co.uk
, which received a grant of £309,500.
The property pictured at the top of the page is a
former furniture and fancy goods store, dating from 1875 and known
as Cooke's Building.