Blackburn Hotspots: Filling a big hole

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.

Present

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”.

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.

“Manchester agents are talking about the M65 corridor, something they didn’t do five years ago. It’s now an established corridor, so that’s why it’s important to bring forward the opportunities.”

Nicola Clayton is Blackburn College’s director of business development and external engagement and also chairs the town’s Business Improvement District (BID) board.

Pointing to the positive impact the investment in Cathedral Square has had, she describes the masterplan as a “jigsaw puzzle” with its pieces including skills delivery.

The college has invested heavily in its own campus as it looks to meet the needs of employers, including ploughing £1.3m into cyber and digital facilities. She says: “We’ve got some fantastic businesses in the area and it’s important that we provide those skills so that those businesses want to invest.

“The more businesses that locate here, the more houses that need to be built, the more the population will grow, and more people will have disposable income.

“For us, it’s about making sure that we’re providing those local people with the skills to be able to take those jobs.”

Accountancy practice Pierce is based in the town centre and its offices sit next to a large chunk of the area earmarked for regeneration, Director Simon Diggle says that it has no plans to move out-of-town and values the visibility its current home gives the business. He hopes that the regeneration will deliver of a “city centre vibe” that will be a major positive when it comes to recruitment.

He adds: “I’d like to see is a fully collaborative approach between the private and the public sector to get joined-up thinking and unite in one direction.”

Simon would like to see a mixed offering developed, including residential, along with opportunities for young entrepreneurs and smaller, nimble businesses to have a base in the town.

He talks of the need for both “inward investment and inward movement” and he says: “You need to get people in and make them stick, keep them in the town centre.”

Daniel Boulton, director at WHN Solicitors, agrees. He says: “We’re never going to have a town centre that’s got huge national retailers in it, that’s gone. So what we need to replace it is a mix of residential, creative industries, leisure, and retail.”

He adds: “The plans for Blackburn are great and even without Morrisons they need to go ahead. The Thwaites site is a fantastic spot to be redeveloped.

“Developing skills is another issue. With hybrid working post-Covid, talented people are working for firms in Manchester or even London because they only need to go into the office once or twice a week.

“We need to make the town attractive to people like them and also develop our skills here for local businesses so they can do more to keep the local talent in the area.”

Hannah Allen, chief executive of Blackburn and Darwen Youth Zone, has skills high on her agenda. Her organisation has worked closely with the council, adult learning centres and Blackburn College to create a highly-successful youth hub.

She explains: “The youth hub basically is about getting young people into work, and since inception we’ve seen 700 young people go into employment from our membership.

“We’ve got 5,000 members, one in seven of the young people in the borough, who all need jobs.

So, we talk to businesses and ask, “What do you need? What skills do you need?”

And she adds: “Businesses keep young people in mind because they are the future employees and leaders of your business. So invest in them, invest in skills and give them an opportunity, because they’ve had a pretty hard time over the past few years.”

When it comes to creating employment opportunities, Mick Smith, social landlord Together Housing’s group director of commercial services, says that it is important not to overlook people living in the borough’s more deprived areas.

He says: “We are looking at how we can have more of a social impact. We have an employment hub in the town centre that we’ve run for the last two years.

“It has been really successful and we’ve helped over 600 people into work. In many cases they are entry-level jobs, but they’re important at the same time as the higher-paid jobs.”

Hannah Allen also highlights the many cultural events and activities taking place in and around the borough, adding: “Bringing that creative stuff and the economy together is so important.”

The development of Blackburn’s cultural quarter is another growing success story, with an increased food offering in the area around King George’s Hall, the jewel in its crown, and work to transform Blakey Moor Terrace.

Blackburn Rovers commercial and integration manager Yasir Sufi says: “I take friends into that area now, and a lot of them are saying to me, ‘I can’t believe this is Blackburn’. The work planned around King George’s Hall will take it up another level.”

He points to the tens of thousands of football fans that attend Rovers’ Ewood Park ground each season. The challenge for him is driving that footfall from the ground into the town centre; both before and after games to boost the local economy.

He poses the question: “How do you get people using the town centre, but then travelling to the stadium and then back again? It’s areas like that where we need to have conversations.

“We’ve been working with the council on different car parking schemes, bussing people in, trying to get park and ride schemes up and running.”

He adds: “I believe a lot of towns and cities are envious of what we’ve got here in Blackburn. There’s everything you’d want from a town centre; health, education and leisure.”

Simon Diggle believes Blackburn needs to shout louder about what it’s got. He says: “You have not got to be shy in coming forwards, you’ve got to tell people, let then in and show what the town can offer.”