Interest has been submitted by the Chinese government overseas property arm over their intention to buy an empty pub in Blackburn town centre.
They have indicated their desire to set up a Service Centre, providing administrative services such as passport and driving licence renewals. This would help to bring Chinese people from all over Britain to Blackburn. Facilities would also include cultural, worship and educational services, along with vehicle parking and accommodation. Their list of facilities is non-exhaustive and some form of members only social club is not out of the question.
Basing their Service Centre here seems a strange idea, Blackburn only has a small Chinese population. Liverpool has the oldest established community in Europe, while Manchester not only has a large oriental community, like Liverpool, it has its own Chinatown. So what has Blackburn got that our region’s two largest cities don’t have? The answer is simple – cheap land, low property prices and a plentiful supply of available empty buildings – certainly compared to our former metropolitan Lancastrians.
An empty pub being brought back to life, whether as a boozer or not, would be very welcome in Blackburn town centre. No more so than by our local authority. Empty buildings don’t generate business rates. They generate break-ins, fires and demolition. The Chinese property developers also say further jobs would be created, such as security staff, locksmiths, facial recognition and DNA technicians. They promise no effort would be spared in keeping their clients in a secure environment.
A lot of people have expressed concern about how some properties in the town centre have ended up becoming hostels and Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMO’s), which are frowned upon by many people, including our local council. But the Chinese property developers claim they will be very selective over who stays in their Service Centre. They claim to already have a prepared waiting list of clients who will be using this proposed facility. As we occidentals like to say: a captive audience.
At the moment the Chinese property developers are remaining tight-lipped over which pub they are interested in, or whether they have identified one yet. But they say their desired premises must be a large building, capable of being secured and have lots of self-contained guest rooms.
As former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping used to say: “It does not matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice”.
