Chandrashekar BhatBy: Chandrashekar Bhat
Blackburn’s Issa brothers are planning to build a dental practice in the northern English town with a local councillor calling it a step “in the right direction”, a media report said.
The building is expected to come up on a site where St Peter’s church once stood in the south-western outskirts of Blackburn town centre.
A planning application submitted to Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council said the proposed structure with two storeys would have consultation rooms and space for research and development.
It is a private venture of the billionaire siblings – Mohsin and Zuber Issa – and is separate from EG Group they founded or its property arm Monte Blackburn. The facility aims to bring a new dental practice to the borough and boost entrepreneurial businesses.
Councillor Damian Talbot told LancsLive the plan “sounds like a step in the right direction” and hoped “any new practice would accept NHS patients.”
The planning application is in the name of Mohammed Kais Ali of EG headquarters and the accompanying design and access statement said the development proposal “is for the construction of a new two-storey dental practice comprising consultation rooms, office space and research and development facilities.”
“The internal layout of the dental practice provides 10 consultation rooms over two floors,” it said.
The plot has been identified as a key gateway site to transform the area into a new mixed-use quarter for Blackburn.
“The vision is to create high-quality environments for entrepreneurial businesses to flourish with a focus on ‘community facilities and public services”, the design and access statement reported by LancsLive said.
“The design proposals for a new health centre and dental practice meet this vision to support the wider Blackburn community and help develop the area into a vibrant urban hub which will create high skilled jobs,” the statement said.
According to it, the office area would have large windows to the front elevation that would allow “natural light to permeate the office workspace.”
