A FORMER Blackburn bouncer is leading the charge to bring back the glory days of the town’s nightlife.

James Newton has been pounding the streets going from pub to pub over the last few weeks in a bid to drum up support for his new campaign.

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The 32-year-old has collected around 500 signatures for a petition calling on Blackburn with Darwen Council to make a fresh attempt to re-energise the town centre in the evenings after the shops close.

The Highercroft Road resident said: “It’s more like a ghost town at night now and it’s a shell of its former self.

“It’s nothing like it was and it needs to change.”

Having worked at numerous venues across Blackburn over the years, including Liquid and Envy, The Jubilee and the Grapes Hotel, Mr Newton has said that he wants to see the town ‘become great again’ and wants to bring back the days of packed pubs and clubs.

The campaigner is calling on the council to encourage businesses to invest more in the town and take over empty buildings to open up new pubs, bars and nightclubs.

He added that it was ‘perfect timing’ since the town’s new Cathedral Quarter’ is nearing completion and will add restaurants and a hotel to the town’s night time offering.

The former Darwen Vale student said: “I have been working at venues in the area since I was 18 so I have been around a bit.

“I have seen the town when it was booming and very busy at night.

“But now it’s nothing like that and it’s time that it changed.

“People have started to go to Preston and Blackpool for a night out because they know that it will be much better than what Blackburn has to offer at the moment.”

The town’s nightlife was dealt a major blow in January when one of Blackburn’s last nightclubs closed down.

The closure of Liquid and Envy, which had been in the town for almost 10 years, was put down to ‘challenging’ trading conditions and a reduction in the number of people in the town at night, by the club’s bosses.

Cllr Phil Riley, the council’s regeneration boss, said: “We are concious of the concerns about how the nightlife in the town centre has changed and we are working to address that.

“However a lot of the change is social and not council-led and there is only so much that we can do.”

Former top Lancashire police chief Bob Eastwood said: “I think that it’s very public spirited of James to take such an interest in the development of something that means a lot to people in all communities.”