Blackburn charity store closes just months after launch

The Blackburn with Darwen Project opened in Railway Road in Blackburn in August to help families in need with furniture.

It was launched by Joseph McMurrough as an extension of the Hyndburn Project, which offers refurbished appliances and furniture at low cost for those on the breadline.

However he has now decided to close the Blackburn store due to difficulties setting up a planned women’s refuge and homeless shelter.

Mr McMurrough said he is now looking for another site in the town to reopen.

The father-of-three said: “It was a good shop but there was just one or two things that we couldn’t get right.

“There was a lot of things to get sorted for the refuge centre and homeless shelter, hopefully we’ll be able to get a site with it all there and ready to go.

“We’ll be opening another site in Blackburn, we just need to look around for the right place.”

The charity originally intended to open a women’s refuge and homeless shelter above the shop, which provided household items and furniture to people in need, but could not finalise the details.

The Hyndburn Project was founded three years ago and currently has three sites open in Accrington, along with two which are temporarily closed while work on the town square commences.

This includes a recently opened bed and furniture unit at the site of the former Industry night club in Church Street.

As well as looking for a new site in Blackburn Mr McMurrough is looking to open up more sites across East Lancashire.

Mr McMurrough said: “We are looking to open up a store in Burnley to help people in need.

“The site at the old Industry night club has just opened to help more people in Accrington as well, that is a big unit.

“We are looking at opening up another big site in Accrington as well which we’re hoping to get sorted within the next couple of weeks.”

The charity has also taken more than 6,000 people on day trips across the country as part of their fundraising work in Hyndburn.