PROPERTY By Ged Henderson


Date: 28 April 2026 Time: 08.30-11.00


Venue: Dunkenhalgh Hotel and Spa


Join decision-makers implementing AI and automation, and those considering their next steps.


Zuber Issa


Hear from business leaders and specialist practitioners on what is working, what is challenging, and how organisations are adopting new technologies while managing risk.


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Brought to you by: FORGING NEW FRONTIERS


Best known for their petrol forecourt empire and former co-ownership of the Asda supermarket chain, Blackburn’s Issa brothers continue to expand new frontiers in property.


In December the Issa family’s property investment business, Monte Blackburn, submitted plans to create a new industrial and logistics development on a 50-acre site just off the M6 in Preston.


If it gets the go ahead it will become the company’s third Frontier Park in Lancashire – joining two earlier successful speculative schemes in Blackburn and Burnley.


The Preston site was purchased for an undisclosed sum from Homes England and a decision on planning is expected later this year.


The business is looking to build high-quality industrial and logistics accommodation totalling 820,000 sq ft in units, ranging in size from 70,000 sq ft up to 625,000 sq ft.


In addition, a drive-through is planned at the entrance to the site, providing a range of amenities through Zuber Issa’s forecourt business, EG On The Move.


The Frontier Park Preston plan follows the Monte blueprint, which has been so successful in delivering the original Blackburn scheme, just off Junction 6 of the M65, and Frontier Park Burnley, which is nearing completion on a site off Junction 9.


In association with:


The process starts with the acquisition of land on a key site that has been earmarked for development for some time, but has not been progressed by its owner.


Monte Blackburn steps in to buy the land and, using the family’s substantial war chest, sets out to deliver a speculative scheme.


The first Frontier Park project, sitting off the Whitebirk Roundabout, was a £100m development. But while the financial stakes are high, the rewards can be great.


Last year real estate fund developer Clarion Partners Europe acquired Frontier Park Blackburn from Monte Blackburn for £115m.


Alex Kenwright, development projects director at Monte Blackburn, works closely with Zuber Issa to drive the property business forward.


in Lancashire are pretty much impossible to pre-let to occupiers before any building works have started. Such developments are as rare as hens’ teeth.”


That meant speculative development. And with everything being cash funded by the Issa family and its other businesses, with no borrowings, it was very much ‘an act of faith’.”


Alex says: “Blackburn is a £100m development, we are talking large sums of money here. We took the attitude that if we built it the tenants would come. The alternative would be to sit on the land, perhaps for another 20 years, and even then, without any development.


Over the last six or seven years our


developments have delivered in excess of two million square feet of accommodation and we are continually looking at opportunities


He explains how Frontier Park Blackburn was created. He says: “The site had been earmarked for development in the Local Plan for some 25 years but nothing had happened.


“We saw part of the site as a good place to develop roadside services under the EG On The Move brand but the landowner said the deal had to be all or nothing, so we bought it all and from that came the idea that became Frontier Park.”


Alex adds: “We discovered that sites like this


“You need to get spades in the ground. Businesses need to see diggers on site and buildings going up. The construction time-scale has also to be short, to attract them into moving.”


The result in Blackburn was a massive success. The one million sq ft development has created 750 new jobs, given Hyndburn a boost to its coffers through business rates and created a statement development on a major gateway into Blackburn.


Alex says that it, and Monte’s other developments,


50


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