Works to refurbish and modernise facilities at youth organisation in Barrow have recently completed, much to the excitement of Drop Zone participants based at Lakeland House.
Drop Zone Youth Projects provides services and activities for young people aged eight and over to raise their aspirations, offering them access to services, advice and guidance. They also run an extended alternative provision programme and opportunities to study for qualifications and accreditations. The centre plays a key role in helping young people to develop essential life skills for transitions into adulthood and independence.
After celebrating 20 years as a successful, independent charity in 2024, Drop Zone Youth Projects have marked this major milestone with a complete redesign of their base at Lakeland House, thanks to £541,000 funding from the government’s Youth Investment Fund.
Building landlords, Westmorland and Furness Council, worked with staff and young people on the design and specifications for the works and their capital programme team managed the delivery of the building project with contractors.
The whole building has been refurbished thanks to input from the creative minds of Drop Zone’s users. The young people produced mood boards and a video for their interior design ideas and were involved in choosing new sofas, furniture and other non-structural finishing touches, paid for thanks to the charity’s own fundraising. They also designed and commissioned a neon logo sign for their new lounge area, to truly mark this space as their own.
The works completed in March and covered redecoration of both floors and reconfiguration of spaces to create a new upstairs lounge and games room, four new offices with new ceilings and more energy efficient LED lighting throughout, an artwork and tech room, café area and a professional training kitchen.
The building remained open to users throughout the works, by upgrading areas in phases to minimise disruption to staff delivering essential support to local young people.
Cath Corkill is the Director for Drop Zone Youth Projects and has been involved in the project throughout as a key stakeholder. She said:
“We moved into the building in 2021 and the plan was for it to be a one stop shop to deliver a full range of accessible services for young people, which I’m pleased to say we are achieving.
“We’re thrilled to see these building upgrades completed as we can now increase our delivery and reach even further. New features like our training kitchen mean we can support young people to learn essential, transferable life skills and gain accredited outcomes to support transitions into adulthood.
“We now have a comfortable café and breakout spaces to carry out support in much nicer surroundings and enough useable space to further our work with local partners and groups."
“It’s great to see the pride our young people have in their new environment and that they were able to play a role in how it could be developed into the best setting for them.”
Cllr Virginia Taylor, Cabinet Member for Sustainable Communities and Localities said:
“I know that Drop Zone’s staff and trustees deliver amazing work that improves the lives and prospects of young people across the Barrow area. I’m pleased that the Council can help - a modern and fully equipped building will allow the charity to do even more, creating further opportunities for youth development and training - leading to enhanced positive outcomes for users.”