PROJECT UPDATE: Site of former Comrades Club in Adelaide Street, Blackpool

An artists impression of how the new medical centre will look, as filed with planners at Blackpool Council

What’s happening?

Plans have gone in to build a new medical centre on the site of the historic Comrades Club in Adelaide Street, Blackpool.

Numerous documents have been filed with planners at the council.

No decision has been made, though they give an idea of what the facility will look like and feature inside.

The L-shaped site is “currently occupied by the South King Street and Adelaide Street doctors’ surgeries and the now-vacant site of the former Comrades Club”, the application says. It is proposed to demolish the existing Adelaide Street Health Centre to build the new facility, with South King Street Health Centre flattened later to make way for a car park, the documents revealed.

Demolition finale in club’s sad demise

What will the new building have?

The three-storey facility will have a ground-floor pharmacy, GP consulting rooms, treatment rooms, facilities for trainee consultants, staff offices, and change and meeting rooms.

Some 18 parking spaces for cars are planned, plus two disabled spots and eight cycle spaces.

It will open from 8am until 6.30pm from Monday to Friday.

The neighbouring surgeries will merge but no name has been chosen yet, Blackpool Clinical Commissioning Group, which organises and pays for residents’ health care, said yesterday.

What happened to the old club?

It was demolished after a fire swept through the empty building last July.

Leader of the opposition at the town hall, Coun Tony Williams, spoke of his dismay at seeing an historic building razed to the ground: “It’s a shame when we lose these buildings of character.”

The club was once the home of Blackpool Grammar School from 1893, and was turned into the Comrades Club in 1920 by soldiers returning from the First World War. It ran until going into administration in 2014.