Blackburn Revisited - the incredible changes to the town centre since I left 12 years ago
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00I am sat in my car at Blackburn train station, in the car park, just off the Peel Centre
00:09and you might be thinking, so? Well, I haven't been here for 12 years. I, in another lifetime,
00:21I used to work for a paper in Blackburn, you might know it, the Lancashire Telegraph. I
00:26worked there for 5 and a half years and every day I came into Blackburn Town Centre. Now,
00:33I've not been back since November 2012. Now, I've heard that there's been a lot of investment
00:42in Blackburn Town Centre, lots of changes, particularly around the Cathedral area where
00:47I used to work. So, I've come back to see what it's like. I've not looked it up on Google
00:55Street Views. I'm going to go in completely raw. I've come back to where I used to park,
00:59as a 20-something year old. I'm going to retrace my steps, so it'll be quite weird for me. I came
01:05in from Junction 3, I think it's Junction 3, of the M65, the one that comes off at Riley Green,
01:13go down Finnington Lane, come through Cherry Tree, Redlam, that way. Apologies if I've got
01:19that wrong. There wasn't a lot of change that way that struck me, other than I think there's
01:25like a new little Sainsbury's and a new petrol station, and a few more boutique-y kind of shops
01:32that have sprung up in Cherry Tree, that area. But yeah, I'm going to go and walk through the
01:37train station now, into the kind of Cathedral Square area, and see what I think. I think it'll
01:44be really interesting. So, I've just got out of my car and I'm walking, and immediately,
01:49what is that next to the Cathedral? I do not know that building at all. Right, I feel like a bit of
01:55a prat for standing here, videoing myself, but that's the building. That's the building. That's
02:03the train station. That's completely new to me. Yeah, it's a massive change. I'm pretty sure that
02:12used to be like where the buses were. No, that's like the bus terminal. There we go,
02:18there's Newspaper House. That's where I used to work. That was our car park, was there.
02:26I'm just going to swing round the Cathedral. Obviously, that's not changed. There we are.
02:33This is all completely new to me. Pretty sure the community club was there. I believe that that's
02:43flats now, where the London Telegraph was. And behind it, now it was a massive weights building,
02:53I think that's coming down. This is the Adelphi, this is sad. Plans have just been passed to turn
03:01this into flats at the ground floor level and storage in the basement. But that was very much
03:09an active pub. 12 years ago, I had my leave-in drink in there. Look at that. I think it closed
03:20down in 2022, turned into a cabaret bar around this corner. Yep, Morrison's is still there. Now,
03:26there's a big, something big missing here. Yeah, that's where I worked. There, no Thwaites Tower,
03:34gone. Okay, so I'm stood where the statue used to be. I'm pretty convinced of the, is it like
03:44mother and child of the teddy bear, which is leaning backwards and the kids trying to collect
03:50its teddy off the floor. That's gone. But in the background, you've got all this brand new
03:56cathedral quarter. It looks really snazzy. I think this is a massive improvement.
04:04Now, this wasn't here. I'm pretty convinced 12 years ago. Is this Barbara Castle? I've got a
04:22feeling it's Barbara Castle, the legendary MP for Blackburn. But I don't know where the other
04:30one's gone, the child and the teddy bear. So I'm on the hunt for that. But look, this is amazing.
04:36This looks much more metropolitan, much more modern. Yeah, this is a great improvement to me.
04:46Blackburn Market. Now, this opened while I was working in Blackburn. So not much has changed
04:53here, but I'm going to have a look around the rest of the area and see if anything has changed.
04:58I'm glad to see that the chipper is still there. I'm going to go into the town centre now and have
05:04a look. I'm on King William Street, Marks and Spencer's behind me. That's still there, although
05:11there's quite a few shops that have closed Waterstones. There's a new B&M, don't remember
05:15that. Quite a few shops have closed, but I don't think that's limited just to Blackburn. I think
05:22that's something that's happening across the country now. Still pretty similar. But yeah,
05:29Marks and Spencer's, I think it stays unnumbered. I think Marks and Spencer's want to move it out of town.
05:34I'm having another what is this moment. I'm pretty sure this is where Waves used to be.
05:45Now, I knew that Waves had come down, but apparently this is now a cinema and a car
05:50park and a cultural quarter. Looks great.
06:03Now, this area again has massively changed for me. This is Railway Road, the junction with Railway Road
06:14leading up to the train station. Now, I remember there being some kind of quite dingy, outdated
06:23underpass around here that's gone. I'm pretty sure there's been some demolition. This, I'm
06:32pretty sure, is where the market area used to be. That building there is a new one on
06:40I'm not entirely sure what that's all about, but it seems very busy down there.
06:50Yeah, it's a real fusion of old and new in this town centre. You can see that Blackburn is really
06:58trying with the investment, but there's some areas that need a lot more. Some areas are pretty
07:04scruffy. But yeah, massive, massive changes. There's been a lot of investment and a lot of
07:13good work done here in the last 10 years. I found her. She's opposite the train station,
07:19or should I say railway station. She's moved about, I don't know, less than 100 metres.
07:27There we go. I knew I'd have to find her.