AN ambitious scheme to convert a historic Blackburn building into a top quality meeting place for deaf and hearing people alike has been launched by the East Lancashire Deaf Society. Reporter AMY BINNS spoke through a sign-language interpreter to one of the key figures behind the scheme, society chairman Doug Alker, about his hopes for the future of the deaf in East Lancashire.

A UNIQUE place where deaf and hearing can meet on an equal footing to overcome the prejudices of the past is more than a daydream to Doug Alker.

He has the energy and passion to make it a reality by turning the crumbling ex-council offices at King Street into a multi-purpose business including a high-quality restaurant, cyber cafe and conference centre.

Doug, who has been profoundly deaf from birth, is a semi-retired management consultant who is turning his talents to charity in a bid to help his friends who didn't make it so far.

Now 58, he was sent from his Darwen home to a Preston boarding school for the deaf when only three years old and stayed there until he was 18.

"In those days, that was what parents were advised to do," he said.

After taking a degree in chemistry he worked at ICI in Darwen for 23 years before going to London as a director of the Royal National Institute for the Deaf.

But despite his success, he believes thousands of deaf people fail through lack of suitable education and training.

"I'm an awkward so and so and that's why I got through the education system," he said. "You find the awkward characters have managed to come through despite the system, the nice ones rarely do."

New legislation has outlawed discrimination against the disabled but Doug believes it hasn't had any effect outside London.

He said: "What really struck me whilst I was working for the big national charities was that we were making very nice policy statements but often it's out of touch with what's happening at the coal face.

"Here, nothing's happening in the lives of deaf people. We have the Discrimination Act but out here no-one's using it, it's not changing people's lives.

"That's why I carried on with the chairmanship of the ELDS while I was in London, it helped me to keep in touch with what's really happening."

Doug is now living part-time with his daughter in Darwen and plans to move up permanently as soon as he can sell his London home.

He wants to put the theory into practice and help deaf people enter mainstream society through the King's Court project.

The East Lancashire Deaf Society bought the listed building with the proceeds of the sale of their old offices in Kendal Street and plan to turn it into an example of how the deaf can run competitive businesses for all sections of the community. The £3.5m project will provide new facilities for the town as well as opportunities for deaf and hard-of-hearing people to train in all kinds of roles within the business. It will be paid for with grants from organisations including English Heritage, who are interested in the historic building, the National Lottery, European funding and Blackburn with Darwen Council, who believe the restoration will boost the town centre.

There will also be a public appeal for funds including a Buy a Brick scheme.

It will provide about 50 new jobs on site and many more through a business development unit to encourage deaf people to set up their own businesses.

Doug said: "For deaf people, it will be a place where their independence can be nurtured, grow and flourish - a launching pad from which they can take their full part in society.

"From the public perspective, King's Court will be a high quality addition to the town centre, somewhere they can come to eat, be entertained and do business."

He also hopes everyday contact with deaf people will change hearing people's attitudes and make it easier for people to mix outside King's Court.

"The general public don't know how to cope with deaf people, they don't know how to communicate with them so they feel uncomfortable with them around.

"The tradition is for deaf people to come together like a ghetto but one way to change attitudes is for deaf people to go out into the community. That is what King's Court is about."

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