A new car park has opened for business today providing the area and surrounding streets with enhanced safety and accessibility.

The new £275,000 car park development at Blakewater Lodge, Whalley Range, Blackburn, has officially opened today, October 23, financed via the Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council’s Capital Fund.

The project has seen the creation of an additional 54 standard car parking places and four disabled bays and comes in response to reported congestion and dangerous parking that affected parents and guardians collecting or dropping children off at St Michael with St John CE Primary School, along with residents and local businesses.

Cllr Quesir Mahmood, executive member for growth and development at Blackburn with Darwen Council, welcomed the development.

He said: “I am confident that this new facility will benefit the immediate vicinity and local community, and that we will see a positive difference in respect of both safety and accessibility in and around the surrounding area.

“The creation of this extra capacity – plus the enforcement measures that will be employed – will free up surrounding streets from situations that have, frankly at times, become unsafe for pedestrians and people passing to and from the area.

“This provision of extra capacity is to be welcomed.”

Demolition of the care home, which previously stood on the site, was approved in 2018 and plans submitted in 2020 for a new car park.

In 2017, an application to turn the home into an Asian market was refused, paving the way for the car park.

The council revealed in July that parents and guardians collecting or dropping children off at St Michael with St John CE Primary School, along with residents and businesses, should see a major difference in respect of ‘safety and accessibility’, once the car park opens.

The works were carried out by contractor, Aggregate Industries and managed and overseen by Blackburn with Darwen Council’s Highways Department.

Deliberately planned to cause as little disruption as possible during the school holidays, the works have been completed within submitted timescales.

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