Residents fear a £200million rescue plan for ‘England’s saddest town’ won’t happen fast enough to save it from further decay and decline.

Once Barrow-in-Furness was a booming centre for shipbuilding and steelmaking, launching vessels that were the pride of the Royal Navy.

Now it has a deserted high street full of boarded up shops, an antisocial behaviour epidemic among its bored youth and a drug problem that has made some of its crumbling estates into no-go areas.

When popular YouTuber Honest Places visited the Cumbrian outpost recently he called it ‘the saddest town in England,’ causing a backlash from local people.

Now the ‘Team Barrow’ scheme aims to return it to its industrial glory days with a huge investment programme over the next 10 years.

Launching the regeneration programme, Cabinet Secretary Simon Case said Barrow’s BAE Systems, by far the town’s biggest employer, meant it still played a vital role in securing Britain’s defences.

The world-leading submarines turned out by the British defence giant make Barrow ‘a strategic national asset,’ said Mr Case, adding ‘although it hasn’t always been viewed that way.’

Recruitment has already begun for the project to build a new generation of hunter-killer submarines, known as SSN-AUKUS, which BAE says will be ‘the largest, most powerful and advanced attack submarines the Royal Navy has ever operated’.

Barrow-in-Furness has been dubbed England’s ‘saddest town’. It is full of closed shops. Pictured is a boarded up pub and music venue

It’s once bustling high street is now a ‘ghost town’. Pictured are a series of boarded up stores 

Many of the closed shop facias have had murals painted on reflecting the workers of the area

Carwash manager Cristina Radu, 29, arrived in Barrow from Romania seven years ago and has a damning verdict: ‘The people are cold like the weather,’ she says

Another 5,000 workers will be added to the 14,500 already employed at BAE and a massive building programme envisioned to house them all.

In time Barrow’s population will rise from 60,000 to 90,000 as it embraces a new era of prosperity – or at least that’s the plan.

A stone’s throw from the yard lies Egerton Court, a crumbling and rat-infested estate of Victorian tenement buildings.

From the courtyard in the centre locals watch BAE workers in hard hats and overalls stride past to their well-paid jobs.

‘None of this money will reach us,’ one male resident tells Mailonline, ‘we’re the forgotten folk living in a hell hole.

‘I daren’t leave my flat when the sun goes down and I only go out at daylight to pick up cigs, bread and milk.

‘The place is overrun with crack and heroin, there are drug deals going on in the stairwells round the clock and the place is alive with rats.

‘People are just existing out of their faces all day long. It’s “Zombieland” and we’ll see nothing of this £200million but people will still keep dying of overdoses.’

From the courtyard in the centre locals watch BAE workers (pictured) in hard hats and overalls stride past to their jobs

The town’s workers helped to build the Astute-class submarines for the Royal Navy. Pictured is HMS Ambush, one of the boats, during trials in Scotland 

Pictured is the bleak scene outside of the shiphall in Barrow-in-Furness where submarines are built 

In the centre of town, empty shops are plastered with colourful murals in an attempt to brighten up the high street 

In the town centre, now sparsely populated by recognisable shops, there was also a degree of scepticism about Mr Case’s proposals.

Alan Elrick has seen profit slump by 22 per cent since the busy thoroughfare his general dealer shop once stood on was demolished and he was forced to move onto the high street.

Mr Elrick, 61, said: ‘My great concern is that this money is not going to filter through fast enough to save the town from either further decline and more closed shops and businesses going under.

‘My prediction is that in three years time it will actually be worse than it is now, which isn’t something anyone wants to see.

‘We’ve seen the high street decline very quickly. In the space of four months we lost Debenhams, Wilko and Bodyshop and they were quickly followed by Boots, Goldsmiths and WH Smiths.

‘When you lose all those names it has a big effect, we just don’t have the footfall any more and it means those of us still on the high street are suffering.’

Jan Crossfield, 66, was wheeling her bike through the town centre as she prepared to start a 10-mile ride with husband Russ, 65.

She said: ‘The town centre is dire, there’s just nothing here which means of course that people don’t come.

Alan Elrick has seen profit slump by 22 per cent since the busy thoroughfare his general dealer shop

Jan Crossfield, 66, was wheeling her bike through the town centre as she prepared to start a 10-mile ride with husband Russ, 65.

What used to be a lively pub and music venue is now a gloomy dead end, with signs saying ‘danger’ plastered across the empty building 

Footfall in the town has reportedly plummeted, according to locals, who say they’re now living in ‘Zombieland’

‘One of the few attractions we did have was The Forum theatre and concert venue where at least you could go and see a band every now and again.

‘But it’s been closed for months because asbestos was found and they’re in the process of removing it to make it safe.’

Retired offshore worker Russ, added: ‘When I was 18 this town used to be buzzing. It was a centre for industry, there were good jobs and the place was aloive.

‘You could go out and see different bands every night and as someone born and bred here I felt happy to be from Barrow.

‘But you just have to look around you now to see the evidence of the decline everyone. It’s really sad. I hope the money being produced can turn things round because it badly needs it.’

Carwash manager Cristina Radu, 29, arrived in Barrow from Romania seven years ago and has a damning verdict.

‘The people are cold like the weather,’ she says.

‘When I first arrived I experienced some discrimination because I was not from the UK and I still find that people don’t really want to talk to me when they hear my accent.

‘It’s a shame because it could be a nice town and I hope that the money being spent will make everyone’s lives better.’

Her friend Iuliana Airinei, 30, said: ‘The real problem here is that there just aren’t any jobs.

‘There is a lot of attention on what is happening at BAE as they launch there but if you can’t do that work there is nothing, especially if you are not from here.

Iuliana Airinei, 30, said: ‘The real problem here is that there just aren’t any jobs.’

The town centre is dotted with many closed shops. Pictured is one bemused resident expressing their exasperation at the shut up stores 

High streets are empty. The lack of customers led to the town’s multi-storey car park closing

Pictured is the inside a Barrow-in-Furness’s market where many of the shops are closed

Debenhams, once a hallmark of the high street, has been closed – with no anchor shops having yet replaced it

‘I’ve tried to get work even at McDonald’s but I wasn’t able to get a job, however my husband is a bus driver with Stage Coach.

‘Our four-year-old daughter was born here and I’m glad she will be brought up somewhere safe and quiet, but Barrow needs more shops and jobs and things for young people to do.

‘I’ll always be grateful for the chance to live here and there must be many worse places.’

Shop worker Rachel Quayle, 34, and husband Liam, 32, are parents to two children aged 15 and nine.

Rachel said: ‘There’s just nothing for the kids to do and that leads to boredom, which leads to antiscoial behaviour from teeangers, which is a real problem in Barrow.

‘There is also a drug problem, but that arises from the same thing. We’ve lost just about everything that young people could go to, so they hang around the streets or stay in their rooms, gaming.’

Liam added: ‘If there’s money to be spent on Barrow it needs to be aimed at the young. We’ve lost go-karting, bowling and a cinema, there’s nowhere for the kids to spend their time.’

Shop worker Rachel Quayle, 34, and husband Liam, 32, are parents to two children aged 15 and nine. They said there was nothing for children to do, leading to boredom

Even the sign into the town – hailed the ‘home of the first Astute submarine’ looks tired 

Pictured is the Spirit of Barrow, a sculpture that adorns the centre of the town 

Simon Case’s vision for Barrow is to be a ‘Bournville of the North’, similar to the garden village established by Cadbury’s for its workers on the edge of Birmingham.

He said: ‘With the pressure that we’ve got on getting the Astute boats finished, then Dreadnought and then Aukus, we started to focus on this two years ago for almost Bournville-like reasons.

‘Pretty quickly, we realised we needed Team Barrow to create an environment that would deliver that happy, skilled workforce we need to support the defence nuclear enterprise… Thanks to Mr Putin and Mr Xi, the business case makes itself!’

The initiative brings together the local council, Government and BAE Systems.

Barrow and Furness MP Michelle Scrogham is a member of the board responsible for managing and overseeing the £200million fund, along with the leader and chief executive of Westmorland and Furness Council, and managing director of BAE Systems Submarines.

BAE Systems’ submarine shiphall dominates the skyline of the town, with many of Barrow’s residents working for the defence giant

In a sign of decay, a rotting wooden vessel is pictured in the harbour, with BAE’s submarine factory seen in the background

PM Sir Keir Starmer last month visited Barrow-in-Furness where he spoke to BAE staff

She said: ‘It is great to see these plans moving forward at pace, and to see projects already getting under way. This is a massive opportunity for our whole area with the aim of delivering growth for our town and making it an even better place to live, work, and raise a family. These plans will help us build vibrant local communities through improvements to transport infrastructure, housing, education, health and wellbeing, and developing local facilities.

‘It is important that we get this right, and I have always said that means involving local people in the process at every stage. I am really pleased that has been understood and that engagement and conversations with local people are at the centre of this plan and being made a priority from the very start.’

Phil Drane, Team Barrow programme director, said: ‘This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the town. Its regeneration is already underway, with projects such as the Marina Village and new university campus providing solid foundations for us to build upon.

‘It’s a really exciting time for our town and our community and we want to work side-by-side with them to understand what matters most, to ensure their views influence our decision-making and inform the design and delivery of our work.’