The anticipated influx of workers to Furness to work at BAE Systems and GlaxoSmithKline, has led to concerns about housing shortages.

One firm is addressing the issue already.

Blake Henderson, established a little over a year ago, is renovating houses in Barrow to get more high quality accommodation onto the market.

Founder Andi Cooke is now working on the firm’s most ambitious project, converting two historic town centre pubs into accommodation.

He spoke to in-Cumbria as part of our “10 minutes with” series.

So, who is Andi Cooke?

“I set up Blake Henderson 12 months ago to serve accommodation needs in the North West and Cumbria, especially because of the demands being created by the larger companies that are operating in the area.

“The proposal was brought to me by Paul Sheldon, as before running Blake Henderson I ran a property development firm in Northampton where I’ve been working for 10 years.

“We have a different plan in Northamptonshire where we build houses, but then maintain ownership of them and let them out.

“The firm now has a property portfolio of over 40 houses that we have built-to-let.

Planning permission and housing shortages in Cumbria

“Obviously we got planning permission at the Wheatsheaf and the Crystal Palace [in Barrow] earlier in the year and we noticed that there was increasingly a mixture of optimism about the companies choosing to base themselves in Barrow but also a concern about where people would live.

“When we went to planning committee meetings, there was a lot of talk about how developments like ours would help solve that problem.

Barrow BID

“It’s great news for everyone that Barrow has a Business Improvement District. Phil Collier has worked incredibly hard to get the scheme off the ground and it’s great to have paid off.

“I’ve sat in on a few meetings and it’s good to get an insight into the town and part of the business community here.

“We sponsored the People’s Choice Award at the recent Love Barrow Awards and it was fantastic to be a part of that and really see what was going on in the town.”

The upcoming Blake Henderson open day

“When we host these open days, it will be about 12 months since we purchased these pubs in Barrow, and the open days will be to show the people from Barrow what we’ve been working on.

“While we have got some houses onto the market, the pubs will be our flagship properties and on the Wheatsheaf we want to get the scaffolding down and get an office set up and five of the redeveloped rooms open for the public.

“We’re really proud of the fact that we’ve recovered older buildings in town. We did a lot of research before we bought and the core of the building remains the same.

“We’ve taken these buildings back to the brick and started again. Some of these buildings will be 130 years old and we’ve restored them to make them like they were when they were new but with a modern touch.

“The open day will take place on July 6 and the whole pub will be on the market at the beginning of September.”

To find out more about Blake Henderson, click here .