Inside rotting UK town where life expectancy is as bad as SYRIA & smack addicts hole up in ‘Victorian slum' estates

The Irish Sun

10-05-2025

IT is the windswept English town where life expectancy is as low as war-torn Syria and where almost one third of the population is in poor health.
Now, Barrow Island residents have told how their streets are overrun with
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Barrow Island has life expectancy rates as low as war-torn Syria
Credit: Glen Minikin
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Rubbish piles up in the street to the despair of residents
Credit: Glen Minikin
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Almost a third of the population are said to be in poor health
Credit: Glen Minikin
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Christopher Cooke lives on Egerton Court and is scared to step out at night
Credit: Glen Minikin
Shop owner Patrick Hunter almost added to the Cumbrian town's grim mortality toll when he suffered a massive heart attack two years ago.
He blames his smoking habit but says others have perished prematurely after a lifetime of toiling on the island's huge shipbuilding yard, previously run by the Vickers company.
Patrick, 67, said: 'I'm a smoker and I wish we were better educated about how to look after our health when we were growing up.
'I smoke about 20 a day now, and I used to get through 30 or 40 a day before I had a heart attack and a triple bypass a couple of years back.
'I was one of the lucky ones. There can be one or two funerals a week here, and some of the recent ones have been for young people in their 30s.
'I don't know what's going wrong. My mate used to work for Vickers, and he says that as soon as his colleagues got to pension age, they would drop dead.
'I'm not saying there was anything wrong with the health and safety over there – it's just it wasn't as good as it is today.
'When you've been burying people as often as we do round here, you wonder how long you've got left.
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'And it's sad that people who work so hard all their lives never get to enjoy their retirement.'
Patrick has run the Mace convenience store on Barrow Island, which is part of
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Shop owner Patrick Hunt suffered two near-fatal heart attacks two years ago
Credit: Glen Minikin
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Today, the shipyards are a shadow of their former selves
Credit: Glen Minikin
He can still recall when over 12,000 workers from the shipbuilding yard would flood the streets at 4.30pm clock off time.
But following mass layoffs in the 1990s when UK heavy industry was devastated by competition from overseas, the town's fortunes plummeted, forcing pubs, greengrocers and two local butchers and bakers to close down.
Today, the Irish sea-facing island has just 2,616 residents according to the last census and a handful of stores, including a chemist, a vape shop and a Co-op supermarket.
With 61 per cent of the population 'economically inactive,' the jobless can often be found drinking from late morning in the handful of pubs still going.
Tragically, at 71, Barrow's male life expectancy is on a par with Syria, which was ravaged by civil war until the collapse of the Assad regime last December.
The area ranks in the worst 0.5 per cent for life expectancy in the UK, and previous studies have shown that 29.3 per cent are in poor health, while 28.2 per cent have no qualifications.
Patrick added: 'When I was growing up, you would go to school and then work for Vickers at the shipyard, those were your only options.
'When the day shift would end at 4.30pm, thousands of people would pour out on to the streets – it was amazing.
'There were shops all over the place back then. We had two butchers and bakers and there was a great sense of community, but they've all gone.
'They are always promising to invest in Barrow - they've been promising to build a business park and a marina for years – but it never happens.
'Today, young people find it's hard to get work and the jobs going are all minimum wage, so you can never hope to buy a car or save for a house.'
'Victorian slums'
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He says residents are too scared to go out at night as drug addicts hang around the neighbourhood
Credit: Glen Minikin
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Although rent is cheap, Christopher says he does not want to live there anymore
Credit: Glen Minikin
Speaking in the shadow thrown out by a pair of crumbling, 19th-century tenement buildings, unemployed Christopher Cooke says he dares not step outside at night as the streets are so dangerous.
Egerton Court, where he lives, has been compared to a Victorian slum and the 144 flats built to house shipyard workers are now overrun with heroin addicts and petty criminals.
Stocky bull terriers are the pet of choice for most residents.
Christopher, 55, said: 'I used to struggle on £375 a month Universal Credit, but now I get Personal Independence Payments as I've been diagnosed with anxiety and depression and I'm financially set.
'The rent is cheap here – about £500 a month – but I don't want to be here because it's bad for your health when everyone is drugged up.
'You wouldn't want to be here at night - it's constant arguments and police. I don't go out at night because I don't feel safe, there are so many drug addicts and most of them are fresh out of jail.
'Last year, I saw a group of them jump a guy and leave him lying on the floor here.
'The police are here all the time but they don't do much. There are lots of overdoses. I remember there being seven in one year when a dodgy batch of pills was going around.
'But alive or dead, what future does anyone have here?'
When the Sun visited Barrow Island last week, a stiff sea breeze had brought an unseasonable chill to the air despite the rest of the country basking in warmth and sunshine.
Tellingly, a funeral cortege swept past as our team was doing interviews, and a search of the obituary pages show it was for a 93-year-old grandmother-of-three.
Hers was one of at least three funerals to take place that week.
Locals complain that Barrow has long been forgotten by Westminster politicians despite the shipyard, which is now owned by BAE, still being central to the construction and maintenance of nuclear submarines.
'Waiting for the end'
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Laura, 40, says she is desperate to leave Barrow Island
Credit: Glen Minikin
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She says the area is depressing, and no one has money to do any "fun" activities
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Laura, 40, who declined to give her last name, is another resident desperate to leave.
Sitting on her mobility scooter outside the only chemist, she said: 'It's miserable and depressing here, and everyone is on drugs in some areas.
'There's nothing to do, and everyone looks like they are about to die, or at least they are waiting for the end.
'No one here has any money, so we can't afford to do anything fun. There's only one cinema and it doesn't show many films.
'There are jobs here, but you have to want to do them, and most people can't be a**ed, they'd rather be on benefits. There's a big drug problem and a lot of heroin addicts.
"I know how to spot them because I've been clean 12 years myself. I'm desperate to move back to Manchester.'
There's nothing to do, and everyone looks like they are about to die, or at least they are waiting for the end.
Laura
Thankfully, not everyone has lost faith in Barrow Island, however.
Cleaner Daniel Norcross, 35, and his partner Bryony Fletcher, 32, say it's a great place to raise a family.
Speaking alongside their son James Norcross, three, Daniel said: 'We love living here. The people are friendly and there's a real sense of community.
'We moved here from Accrington, Lancs, six months ago, and that's a much worse place to live.
'We would see people taking drugs in the streets over there, and we've never seen that in Barrow.
'BAE has kept this town going, and they are doing really great things.'
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Bryony added: 'We have four children between us, and we think it's a great place to raise kids. We pay £610 a month for a two-bedroom flat and that's affordable for a family like us.
'Yes, Barrow is run down in places, but you can say that about anywhere in the country, and we feel it's getting better all the time.'
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Daniel Norcross and Bryony Fletcher, with their son James, say they love living in the area
Credit: Glen Minikin
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Daniel claims that although there are jobs in the area, people do not want to work
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They argue that although it is run down in places, the same could be said about the rest of the country
Credit: Glen Minikin