FAST-growing Blackburn firm Euro Garages is reportedly in discussions over plans to buy roadside dinning chain Little Chef.

The company is said to be in advanced talks to buy the brand and its restaurants from Kout Food Group.

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The Kuwait-based company acquired Little Chef for £15million in 2013.

Around 70 Little Chefs still remain after they had a total of almost 450 restaurants at the company’s height in 2000.

A spokesman for Euro Garages said they were unable to comment at this time but should have more information in around a week.

Blackburn with Darwen Council deputy leader, Cllr Phil Riley, said that the expansion of Euro Garages is good news for the town.

He said: “It is always good news to see a local company expanding and nobody is much better at expanding than Euro Garages.

“It is something that I would be pleased to see if it goes and and it would indirectly help strengthen the local economy.”

Euro Garages, which has its headquarters at the Beehive Trading Park in Blackburn, has more than 330 sites across the country.

It is understood that once the deal is complete, each Little Chef site will be assessed individually, with some sites potentially being rebranded.

Euro Garages has partnerships with Starbucks, Subway, Greggs and Burger King. It also has links with BP, ESSO, Shell and Spar.

Chief executive for East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce Mike Damms said the area should be ‘proud’ to host the company.

He said: “Euro Garages is quite simply a superb company and I have no doubt that any action they take in business will be a success.

“They are a very well managed company and we should be proud to have them in East Lancashire.”

The company, owned by brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa, secured planning approval for four food outlets at a service station in the Ribble Valley in December.

The plans include two 24-hour drive-through units and up to 50 jobs at the site at Barrow Business Village in Hey Road.

In November last year the company merged with European Forecourt Retail in a move which created a combined workforce of around 8,500 employees.

The firms formed a holding company, ‘Intervias’ which has its own board and serviced more than six million customers a week.

Euro Garages posted a total turnover of £815.6m in its most recent set of accounts. This represented a 26 per cent rise on the previous year to July 31 2014.

Pre-tax profits increased by 127 per cent to £34.8m to 31 July 2015.