New lease of life for Blackburn Mayor’s old home as plans for health hub move forward

Proposals to restore and extend Blackburn’s historic Griffin Lodge as a health and wellbeing centre for local people have been submitted to planners.

The idea of carefully restoring and expanding the Grade II-listed building, which was once the home of the Mayor of Blackburn, was first proposed by Witton, Limefield and Redlam medical centres in 2017, and has finally been submitted for formal planning permission.

Currently, the practices are all based in former houses which weren’t built for clinical care or services. As a result, the practices desperately need new premises which are fit for the purpose of clinical care.

In their current buildings, the environment for patients is poor – access for people with disabilities is difficult and the layout is seen as unhelpful and confusing. The buildings are limiting the health and care services the practices can deliver, and the staff they can recruit.

After positive feedback on the proposals from patients and local people in events with the practices several years ago, the practices have teamed up with Warrington-based primary care premises specialist, Assura, to work to turn their plans and people’s suggestions into reality.

Dr Hereward Brown, from Limefield Medical Centre, said: “This has been in the making for a really long time and there’s no doubt that the experiences of the last year have brought our premises challenges into even sharper focus. This would be a huge project but an enormously exciting one for the care we can deliver to our patients and the working life of our teams, as well as a fantastic thing for Blackburn to see this historic site transformed and put to work once again for our community.”

The new hub at Griffin Lodge would allow the practices to offer extended services away from hospital, bringing those services closer to people’s homes and workplaces. These would include minor operations, a much wider range of clinics and support including social prescribing, physiotherapy, mental health services for young people, COPD and pulmonary rehabilitation and many other wellbeing services on site.

It will create space for training of student nurses, doctors and nurse practitioners and will be a local health education space. Given Griffin Lodge’s location, there will also be fantastic links with the surrounding outside space.

Dr Mark Dziobon, Medical Director for Blackburn with Darwen and NHS East Lancashire CCGs, said: “This is a major proposal for the area and is a really exciting development. For patients this is going to be a game changer.

“Over 90% of the contact people have with the NHS locally is via their GP and GP practice. So it is important that people have not only modern and accessible GP services but also services operating out of buildings that are ahead of the times and our expectations. We know that patients want health and care services to be joined up, closer to home and the best that they can be and this development is a major step in that direction.”

One of the most exciting things about the project is the opportunity to reuse an historic building for vital community services rather than constructing something brand new – which is also an important part of tackling climate change. Historic England research has found that carefully recycling historic buildings can produce far less carbon than the process of demolishing and constructing new sites.

Blackburn and Darwen Borough Council would provide the site for the scheme and Cllr Phil Riley, executive member for growth and development, said: “Griffin Lodge has been out of use for a long time so to have it brought back into use would be a really positive thing.

“It is a fantastic Grade II-listed building but has been, unfortunately, derelict for a while. The council and Assura have put a great deal of work in to develop this and I’m really pleased to see the plans being submitted.

Current condition of Griffin Lodge

“It is also great to see the plans for a community health hub in our borough. This is especially important after the last two years which have been really challenging to say the least.”

Patients do not need to take any action and would begin using the new site when it opens as a health hub – subject to planning and construction timescales – in 2024.

Assura senior development manager, David Sadler, said: “This is a real first for Assura and such an exciting scheme to be working on. We’ve already transformed a number of older buildings into incredible modern medical centres, from a Victorian school to a former fire station, but this is on a very different scale.

“The opportunity to help these three practices create their new home at the same time as protecting a local landmark for the future makes this doubly special.”