Plans to turn former pub near Lancashire high school into day nursery for 30 children
A former Blackburn pub building has been earmarked for a day nursery.
Mrs Iram Arfan wants to convert the premises of The Royal Oak in Roe Lee. The detached two-storey former public house front on to Royal Oak Avenue at its junction with Pleckgate Road, two miles north of Blackburn town centre.
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The premises are surrounded by residential properties and close to Pleckgate High School. It has with rendered elevations beneath a pitched slated roof an adjacent garage and rear former beer garden.
Opposite the property there is a leased car park for approximately 16 vehicles. Internally, the former trading area is open plan with an adjoining catering kitchen, stores and WCs. The first floor provides two bedroom living accommodation, kitchen, lounge and bathroom.
Supporting documents submitted with a planning application for the conversion to Blackburn with Darwen Council say: “The development would consist of a pre-school nursery. There could be 30 children on site at any one time.
“The age range would be from two weeks to five-years-old. There would be play area located at the eastern end of the building with a maximum of 15 children supervised by three to four adults. Operational hours would be: whole site – 8:45 am to 4pm; playground – 9.15am to 3:15pm.
“The site would operate Monday to Friday only and only for the 38 weeks/year of the standard school year, i.e. not during summer holidays, evenings, weekends, Easter, Christmas and New Year.
“It is understood that the playground would be constructed at the rear of the building, such that the distance from the centre of the play area to the nearest residential rear garden/yard would be approximately 17metres away.
“In addition, in planning terms the use of the site as a pre-school nursery would replace the current use as a pub with a beer garden. In particular the beer garden is closer to the rear gardens of neighbours and any noise from patrons in the beer garden would be most likely to occur at evenings, weekends and holidays.
“These times are most likely to conflict with neighbours’ use of their own gardens and are also times when no noise would be being generated by the nursery. Consequently, in planning terms the granting consent for the pre-school nursery is likely to represent a significant improvement in noise impact from the site.
“Overall, it is considered that the noise impact of the proposals would be acceptable and should not bar the grant of planning consent for the development.”