BOSSES at a leading curry house have pledged its arrival in Burnley could be the first of many similar ventures in Lancashire.

Brothers Basharat, Mo and Mahmood Akhtar have seen Shimla Spice named the best Indian restaurant in England in the 2013 English Curry Awards.

And the trio have confirmed they want to press ahead with their plans to convert the former White Hart pub in Church Street into their latest branch.

A Shimla Spice spokesman said: “After numerous requests by customers, and due to popularity and high demand, we are planning to open a branch in Burnley in 2014. With other branches based in Yorkshire, this will be the first of many branches that will be open in Lancashire.”

The restaurant was first established in Keighley in 1998 and was followed by a second location in Shipley in 2006, which was last year voted ‘restaurant of the year’ by readers of Telegraph sister paper, the Bradford Telegraph and Argus. The announcement is the latest fillip for Church Street, as work is also ongoing to reopen the nearby Coach and Horses pub, which closed earlier this year.

The Crown Hotel, formerly known as The Keirby and now home to one of the halls of residence for the University College of Football Business, has also been the subject of a substantial overhaul in recent weeks and months.

The brothers said they were ‘excited’ at the prospect of crossing the border from Yorkshire into Lancashire and that they expect to open their East Lancashire eaterie by next summer.

The former Mitchells pub, once a venue for the Burnley Blues fringe festival, has been empty for just under three years and the building was the subject of an arson attack in the summer of 2011.