BLACKBURN HOTSPOTS By Ged Henderson
FILLING A BIG HOLE
The proposed skills campus
Blackburn with Darwen is the next stop on our tour of Lancashire’s hotspots. We brought leaders from business, local government and education together at the offices of Pierce. Regeneration and levelling up cash were high on the agenda
There is no doubt supermarket group Morrisons’ decision to pull out of the £250m regeneration of Blackburn town centre was a massive blow. But those behind the masterplan and its ambitions are clear - it is no knockout punch.
Morrisons had been due to build its new home on the former Thwaites brewery, a key site in the plan. However, citing rising construction costs, it announced in March that it would now stay put at its current location in the town.
A bid to get fellow retailer Marks and Spencer to ditch its plans to leave the town centre for Frontier Park in neighbouring Hyndburn, and instead move into the regeneration picture, also proved unsuccessful.
However, despite the setbacks, the projects and the planning continue. A planning application has been submitted, looking to kickstart the creation of a skills and cyber campus on the former site of Blackburn Market.
Blackburn with Darwen Council is in talks with the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) with the aim of its training company, Training 2000, occupying the first building,
once constructed. The ultimate aim is to deliver a new education and commercial quarter, bringing thousands of learners into the heart of Blackburn every year, turbocharging the town centre economy.
The council has secured £20m of Levelling Up funding towards the scheme, which is also set to link into the arrival of National Cyber Force (NCF) in nearby Samlesbury and its need for skills.
The masterplan is being led by the local authority in partnership with the Eric Wright Group’s Maple Grove Developments. Together, they successfully delivered the town’s much admired Cathedral Quarter, with its dynamic mix of offices, restaurants and hotel.
Council leader Phil Riley says that Morrisons’ decision has created a “big hole” in the plans but he remains upbeat, saying the withdrawal was no real surprise and had been coming for some time. He adds: “It’s not the end of the world by any stretch of the imagination.”
He believes the development of a campus devoted to training will “bring a lot of people into the town centre” and describes it as a “strategically strong use of the space”.
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Coun Riley also sees the Marks and Spencer decision to quit Blackburn as part of the retailer’s wider national strategy to go out-of- town as people’s shopping habits change. And he adds: “I don’t think there’s any reason to view it as a doomsday scenario.”
Caroline James, managing director of commercial property consultants Trevor Dawson, is equally upbeat. She says: “There’s still a lot of investor interest in Blackburn, there’s no question about it, and it’s creating opportunities. I know we’ve got a huge opportunity here to make a real difference.”
She is enthusiastic about the work being done to bring training operations into the heart of the town and the positive impact that will have. However, she would like to see more residential development in Blackburn’s regeneration mix.
Caroline says: “The other challenge for Blackburn is employment land. We haven’t got an awful lot coming through in the pipeline. We need to gather that momentum so we don’t lose out to other areas like Preston that have some big sites coming forward.
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