“When people came down from Scotland, they couldn’t believe that they got given a house and a job. They moved away from the mines and the uncertainty of Scotland’s own steel industry.”
Hadden’s family butchers sells scotch pies, tattie scones, haggis and other specially imported products from north of the border. He and his wife Lorraine, are the descendants of people who moved south when the Glasgow-based steelmaking firm Stewart and Lloyds relocated here in 1932 in search of work and, crucially, housing which the steelworkers were given.
However, since steel manufacturing ceased in Corby 35 years ago, resulting in the loss of more than 10,000 jobs and pushing the town’s unemployment level to 30 per cent, Corby has had to search for a new identity.
David and Lorraine Hadden behind the counter of their butchers’ shop in Corby (Photo: Vicky Spratt/The i Paper)
Like other post-war new towns, so much of Corby’s culture and society revolved around industry. It’s not just jobs that were lost when the steelworks closed, the Haddens say, but a sense of community too.
Deindustrialisation, the Haddens are clear, has completely changed Corby. And not necessarily for the better.
Corby steelworks closed in 1980, with the loss of around 10,000 jobs (Photos: Getty Images)
It’s coming up for lunch time and a queue is forming outside the Haddens’ shop as people order chicken breasts (which David proudly notes are cheaper than in the supermarket) and, of course, the Scotch pies which have been freshly baked today.
Corby is just north of Northampton in the East Midlands and is in a prime position. It forms part of a Midlands triangle with Leicester and Peterborough, a stone’s throw from Kettering and around 72 miles north of London.
It’s easy to see the appeal, as the Haddens’ daughter 33-year-old Danielle puts it, “the fact that you can get almost anywhere in the country easily”, whether that’s the North of England, Glastonbury Festival which she just went to with her friends or Luton airport (just 49 minutes on the London-bound train) makes it a great place to be.
Corby town centre has suffered from a number of shop closures (Photo: Vicky Spratt/The i Paper)Indeed, David says he has recently hired a young butcher who left east London with his girlfriend because they could not afford rent.
“The town centre has gone downhill in my estimation,” David says. Lorraine agrees: “Back in the day, everyone went into town, but now it’s all big supermarkets surrounding us, and lots of the little local shops have gone. “There’s a Primark!” a gentleman in the queue pipes up. David and Lorraine laugh.
Barron says that one of the first things he wanted to do was get the people responsible for the “regeneration” of Corby together.
Many people living in Corby use its rail links with London for long-distance commuting (Photo: Bill Allsopp/Getty )Nearby are the £20m Corby international swimming pool and Savoy cinema. The pool, which was touted as a training centre for the London 2012 Olympic Games, is now beloved by residents. It was funded by Corby Borough Council (CBC) in partnership with English Partnership, the East Midlands Development Agency, the Department of Local Government and North Northants Development Company.
The upshot, in Barron’s view, is that all of the above “attracted a lot of inward investment” for Corby and marketed the town as “North Londonshire”, but failed to really do what the original post-war planners did and think about how to join the town’s infrastructure, community, amenities and jobs together.
Artwork depicting Corby’s steel heritage adorns a fence in the Corby town centre regeneration area (Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty)
“Corby was built on steel,” Barron says. “The town has had to come back from a huge loss, dust itself down and get back up again. We need jobs here, yes, but we need to make sure we get decent and secure jobs.”
Barron, however, does not just want big names for the sake of having them. “Nike is a world-class name, yes,” he says, “but we want world-class jobs here. We need to build a local economy based on secure work. I don’t want zero-hour jobs.”
Recent attempts to “regenerate” Corby were more cosmetic than pragmatic. They were not future-proofed. This suggests that Barron is right to be rigorous about ensuring the town’s longevity and not look for quick fixes.
Corby Cube is one of several regeneration projects in the town (Photo: Getty)
The Haddens’ daughter, Danielle, still lives in Corby in the house her grandparents originally moved into when they came down from Scotland.
Danielle did not go to university. She commutes to Northampton every day, where she works in finance for a large cleaning company which services Corby’s factories. Before that, she worked in a beauty salon, but she moved because she wanted a more stable income.
“I love Corby and the Highland Gathering is an incredible institution where generations come together, but I just wish the council had supported more local, independent businesses to stay in the town,” Danielle says, “it’s really sad – none of the restaurants that used to be here are here now. There are more chains.”
Corby has been seeking a new identity away from its former life as a steel town (Photo: Keystone/Getty Images)
Less openly talked about but alluded to over and over again when I chat to members of Corby’s original migrant population in pubs or cafes is the fact that workers have also moved here from Eastern Europe. They staff Corby’s cafes and factories, and some of those who came down from Scotland seem to associate these newcomers with the town’s decline, even though there is no evidence of that.
Danielle, however, notes that one of her best friends from the beauty salon is the daughter of migrants from Romania, and Danielle is clear that Corby has a “more the merrier” spirit.
Before I leave, I have a coffee and speak to the manager of the restaurant where I buy it. She’s 27 and recently moved here from London with her mum from Croydon. Before getting a management job in hospitality, she worked in one of Corby’s warehouses.
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This young woman enjoys swimming in Corby’s massive 50-metre pool and going to the Qube for the odd cocktail, but, beyond that, she concedes, “there isn’t a lot for young people to do”.
“We have helped Corby transform in recent years, supported by a £19.9m investment from the UK Government’s Towns Fund, announced in 2021,” they said. “This funding is being used to deliver four key projects aimed at revitalising the town centre and improving connectivity, sustainability, and community infrastructure.”
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