WELCOME TO BAR ROW-IN-FURNESS

DECADES OF DEINDUSTRIALIZATION HAVE TAKEN THEIR TOLL ON THIS NORTHERN PORT. WILL A DEFENSE SPENDING SPLURGE REVIVE IT?

- RYAN HOGG

WELCOME TO BARROW-IN-FURNESS: the forgotten town behind the U.K.’s nuclear defense seeking resurrection.

At any given moment, a Vanguard-class submarine is somewhere in the world’s oceans, carrying up to 40 nuclear warheads, its commanders and some 130 crew prepared for an apocalyptic call from the U.K.’s prime minister to strike its target.

Tucked at the bottom of a peninsula, looking out toward the Isle of Man, is where those submarines began their life: BAE Systems’ Devonshire Dock Hall. The site is a six-pronged shipyard stretching 850 feet across and 170 feet into the air, and it stands as a kind of watchkeeper over Barrow-in-Furness, a small town of about 67,000 people in the U.K. What's inside: the construction of nuclear-warhead-packed submarines—the expensive protectors of an entire nation.

When the Devonshire Dock Hall was being constructed in the waning years of the Cold War, between 1982 and 1986, the U.K. government was spending around 5% of its GDP on defense. Its military put boots on the ground in the Falkland Islands while prepping for a potential war with the Soviet Union alongside NATO, pumping more money into Barrow. In the past 30 years, though, the story has reversed. U.K. government spending on defense fell through the turn of the century to a low of 2.1% of GDP by 2013. That spending decline was punctuated in Barrow by mass layoffs, collapsed supply chains, and state-driven austerity.

As the U.K. government recommits to bulking up its military, BAE Systems, the 140th-largest company in Europe by revenue in 2023, is tasked with rearming the country at sea, on the ground, and in the air. The long-suffering residents of Barrow-in-Furness, battered by years of funding cuts, declining health, and falling standards, are facing a last-chance saloon to once again reap those benefits.