A NEW gastro pub is set to open in Blackburn – but it has triggered a furious planning row.

The former Hordens pub, Livesey Branch Road, closed earlier this year. Now Thwaites brewery wants to reopen the former live music hotspot as a food-based pub.

But some locals are angry that a proposal to include a fish and chip takeaway in the revamp have been passed without going before the planning committee.

Bosses used ‘emergency powers’ to approve the terraced area at the front of the pub, which will become the takeaway, despite objections from residents.

Adam Scott, the council’s strategic director of regeneration, said he had been told that funding for the scheme could only proceed if planning permission was awarded before October 25.

This meant the project would be ‘at risk’ unless he used his emergency powers.

Livesey Parish Council has written to the council expressing its ‘total disgust and annoyance’.

It said the the pub had previously created ‘horrendous problems’ for residents, leading to a licensing crackdown.

In 2006 CCTV footage was released showing a group of England football fans climbing onto the pub roof after a World Cup match.

The owner of nearby Holly Tree chip shop has threatened to complain to the local government ombudsman.

And ward councillor Derek Hardman accused town hall bosses of ‘driving a coach and horses’ through the process, saying it should have come to the planning committee.

Mr Scott said: “The vacant public house has caused us lots of problems in the past. The proposal for a gastro pub, with improved terraced areas and no music entertainment, was considered an improvement.”

He said there was a ‘real danger’ that investment would be lost if it was delayed.

Planning committee chairman Coun Jim Smith, who signed off the decision, said: “Occasionally an application comes up that’s got a time limit on it.”