‘Dangerous’ eyesore building in Darwen could be refurbished and turned into houses

Plans to transform Equity House, in Equity Street, into a trio of three and four-bedroom houses have been submitted to Blackburn with Darwen Council again despite the idea being refused two years ago.

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The former engineering works was devastated by a fire in 2010 with flames which reached 20ft high and the building has been derelict ever since.

The owner of Equity House, Ben McKay, was only granted approval to build two houses there in 2014 but had always wanted to have three as this was more ‘economically viable’.

Frank Smith, from agents James Campbell Associates, said he hoped that this time the planning officers would agree that three houses is much more economically feasible than two.

He said: “It is just not possible to develop two houses, it needs to be three so that Ben can make a small profit out of this.

“This is not out of greed at all It’s what anyone would do who is trying to make a living.

“It’s an awkward site because the planning officers are trying to implement modern constraints on an old development and it just doesn’t work and we are hoping they will see that.

“It’s a dangerous building and will remain like that if officers do not accept that two houses will not work.”

The houses will be similar to the existing homes in the area and will be in terraced style.

The external appearance is set to be retained with mainly internal alterations taking place.

There will only be one parking space for one of the dwellings and the others will have on-street parking.

Council highways officers previously said in 2014 that on-street parking would not be an issue because it would be comparable to the situation when the building was in use as a commercial premises.

Cllr Pete Hollings, representative for Sunnyhurst ward, said that he hoped things could start moving forward with the development.

He said: “I’m very pleased that it looks like work is going to start happening again on this building.

“The residents have had to put up with a lot disruption with things starting and stopping on it and they were obviously very distressed when the fire happened a few years ago.

“Lets hope proceedings can now move along swiftly.”