The ‘rip out’ of a former Blackburn pub has commenced after plans to turn it into flats were approved last year.
Nicola Grimshaw shared a picture of the former Railway Road pub as works appear to have started on the site.
The picture shows rubble on the floor and holes in the ceiling.
In January last year, plans were submitted to convert the former pub in Railway Road into a job-creating ground-floor restaurant with six apartments on the two floors above.
In November, the plans were revised, and the restaurant proposal was dropped after Nabeel Hussain of the Bolton-based Pinsent Group submitted a revised planning application for the building, which replaces the restaurant with three one-bedroom flats.
Blackburn with Darwen Council granted planning permission with four conditions for the rejuvenation of the four-storey Victorian building at the intersection of the town centre's Cathedral and Darwen Street Conservation areas, close to the railway station.
Previous planning permission, including the construction of a ground-floor restaurant, remained valid should Mr Hussain decide a new eatery is viable.
The pub closed in September 2022 after years running as a cabaret bar, and played an important role for the LGBTQ+ community in Blackburn.
In 2019, Tony and Tom Bromwich took over the pub with ambitious plans to bring the colour and spectacle of The Friends of Dorothy (FOD) to the pub and turn it into ‘Blackburn’s only cabaret bar’.
Their last show was Saturday, September 3, 2022, and they brought drag queens and entertainers to the stage that has “been part of the FOD family” for three years.
Blackburn with Darwen Council declined to comment.
Share