A DISUSED hospital will be given a new lease of life as a single-sex boarding school by a group of Islamic scholars, it was revealed today.

Park Lee Hospital, Blackburn, has been sold to a board of trustees for £360,000.

Chairman of Lancashire Council of Mosques Moulana Sidat said it would be the fourth school to be opened by the group. They first bought a former TB sanatorium in Holcombe, near Ramsbottom, more than 25 years ago.

More than 300 boys from all over Britain now study at the Holcombe Hall Arabic college and the group has since opened boarding schools in Birmingham and Bradford.

A college spokesman said: "The keys to Park Lee were handed over to us last week. We don't yet know if it will be a girls or a boys school as it depends on which most parents want. We haven't yet decided on a name for the school, or the board of trustees.

"We will be teaching the National Curriculum and religious education with courses in drug awareness and other life skills.

"A lot of young people today are going out of line and we want to help them develop into good citizens.

"Our students at Holcombe go on to study Arabic and other courses at Manchester and Birmingham University."

Workmen are now repairing the Park Lee buildings and the first pupils will move in within six months. Organisers hope the former hospital will eventually house between 100 and 150 students, aged from 12 to 21.

One room will be converted into a mosque if it becomes a boys' school or a prayer room if it is used as a girls' school, as Islamic women do not enter mosques.

A spokesman said he hoped the pupils and teachers would fit into the neighbourhood and have good relationships with local people. He said: "We have always had good relations with our Holcombe neighbours and have never had any trouble in more than 25 years. We hope it will be the same in Park Lee."

The hospital, which opened as Blackburn Fever Hospital in 1894, was closed last year.

It was built with isolation wards for patients with infectious diseases, then was used as a sanatorium for children with tuberculosis and later as a hospital for the elderly.

The East Lancashire Hospice, which has not been sold, was built on its bowling green in 1983.

After the last patients were moved to the new Queen's Park site last year, vandals caused problems until security guards were employed 24 hours a day.

In September, a bereaved family was attacked by thugs who pelted their car with bricks as they drove away from the hospice.

A spokeswoman for Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley NHS Trust said the money from the sale would be ploughed back into new developments including the mental health facilities at the Queen's Park site.

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