Town centres and shopping areas have really been struggling over the last few years, and those issues have been made worse by the Covid-19 crisis.

It is going to get tougher for retailers and trickier for those who make the decisions on how to boost certain areas and revitalise towns.

It will be a crucial few months and years for those people, and those in Barrow who will be making the decisions have been given a timely boost thanks to Historic England.

The £1.1 million that is coming from the organisation was announced earlier this year, however as explained in today's Mail, the BID team have explained a little bit more on how it is going to be spent.

Although this money might not directly impact retailers and local businesses who are struggling, it should have a knock in impact and hopefully attract more people to the town when we get back to a little bit of normality, if people can remember what that was actually like.

The amount that is being invested by Historic England, around £95 million in total, is a fantastic scheme especially at a time when public money and grant money is really stretched due to the pandemic.

This grant has been in the pipeline for a while now, so I'm sure the decision makers have been planning what to spend it on. It is a boost and some good news in amongst all the bad.