‘It’s a place where ideas grow and businesses can move forward.’ That is how Co-Lab founder Clyne Albertelli describes Whitehaven’s Bus Station, a site that opened in May 2021 after being transformed from a derelict corner of the town. Five years on, the government’s own account shows why that rings true. The building has become a busy base for entrepreneurs, start-ups and creative firms, with hospitality space alongside workspace and a much more active role in Whitehaven’s economy than the site once suggested.

According to the UK Government, the project was led by BEC and backed by £5.4 million from Sellafield Ltd through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s Social Impact, Multiplied, or SiX, programme. The funding was designed to support communities across West Cumbria, and this is the kind of scheme local people can actually see, use and judge for themselves. Sellafield Ltd chief executive Euan Hutton said the development helps ‘unlock opportunity in West Cumbria’. Behind the corporate wording is a simple fact: an empty site has been put back into service for local firms, local workers and the town centre itself.

Figures released alongside the anniversary say the Bus Station has helped create more than 80 jobs and generate over £350,000 each year for the local community. Just as importantly in a place-based project, 70% of the construction spend stayed within the local supply chain, which is the sort of detail that tells you whether the benefit stayed close to home. The building offers 7,700 square feet of flexible workspace, including co-working areas, private offices and meeting rooms. It is also home to The Peddler, a 120-seat restaurant that has brought more people into town and given Whitehaven another reason for visitors and locals to stay a little longer.

One of the clearest tests of any workspace is whether businesses can actually build from it. Co-Lab, an engineering solutions firm set up by Albertelli in 2022, is one of the better examples to come out of the building. Albertelli said his business uses several parts of the Bus Station for workshops, meetings and sessions with clients and partners. But he was equally clear about the less visible strength of the place, saying ‘the real value is the people and the connections you make’, a reminder that small firms often need proximity and trust as much as they need desks and meeting rooms.

A big part of that offer has come through the Barclays Eagle Lab, described as the first of its kind in Cumbria. The space gives start-ups and smaller businesses access to shared workspace, mentoring, expert advice and practical support without requiring them to look far beyond the county for it. Barclays says that in its first five years the Eagle Lab supported 59 businesses based at the Bus Station, helped create 62 jobs and supported firms to raise more than £1.5 million. Its on-site Maker Space has enabled 197 prototypes, while more than 7,000 visitors have come through the doors.

Those figures sit alongside 344 hours of community activity and more than £55,000 in local spend generated by the Lab, according to Barclays. That gives the building a wider role than simply housing tenants; it has also worked as a place where ideas can be tested, contacts made and activity kept close to home. John McAllister of Barclays Eagle Labs called it ‘a real engine for business growth in West Cumbria’. He said the gains have gone beyond the building itself, with new jobs, investment and stronger collaboration showing up across the area.

That is why the Bus Station matters beyond the headline numbers. In Whitehaven, this is a practical example of what place-based regeneration looks like when the funding is real, the partners stick with it and the town gets something useful rather than decorative. There is a wider point here for the North as well. Too much national talk about growth still drifts south or settles on the biggest city regions first. Whitehaven’s Bus Station is a reminder that smaller towns can produce serious economic results when investment is rooted locally and businesses are given room to get on with it.