Council responds to M&S proposal

HYNDBURN Council has responded to a new legal application concerning Tesco and Blackburn with Darwen Council’s additional bid to throw a legal spanner in the works of a new £10.1million Marks and Spencer food hall on the Issa brothers’ Frontier Park.

- BY BILL JACOBS Local Democracy Reporting Service

In April councillors voted to approve the scheme for the second time and rejected an alternative scheme to locate it on Blackburn's former Thwaites brewery site.

The legal saga comes against the background of M&S's decision to close its existing 1980s all-purpose store in Blackburn town centre’s King William Street when its lease expires in September 2027.

April's decision by Hyndburn Council’s planning committee followed the High Court in September quashing of its original April 2024 decision to grant permission for the scheme forcing the process to be rerun.

In giving the approval, the councillors rejected the recommendation of planning manager Adam Birkett to refuse it on the grounds that land on the cleared Thwaites Brewery site originally earmarked for a new Morrisons supermarket was a suitable alternative. Now the scheme from Monte Blackburn, the property arm of Mohsin and Zuber Issa’s business empire, which owns Frontier Park just across the border between Blackburn and Rishton, is facing a further legal challenge from Tesco supported by Blackburn with Darwen Council.

The national supermarket giant has made a new application to the High Court for judicial view arguing that the committee acted unlawfully by failing to properly apply the critical “Town Centre First” sequential approach test in making its decision.

If the bid leads to a full hearing it could delay the new M&S food hall on Frontier Park by months.