Blackburn mayor plan revealed

Plans have been revealed for Blackburn to get its own mayor following local government reorganisation.

Blackburn with Darwen Council will be abolished in 2028 as part of a post‑Lancashire devolution shake‑up.

However, its leader Phil Riley has said a proposal for Blackburn to retain its own ‘First Citizen’ is being worked on.

He told the authority’s full Council Forum meeting on Thursday night: “If everything goes according to plan within the world of local government reorganisation, 2027/28 will be the last Blackburn with Darwen mayor.

“However, we absolutely recognise that mayors fulfil an important civic role.

“So we have been looking at ways in which we may be able to continue with a civic mayor of Blackburn.

“Clearly, after 2028 the civic mayor of Darwen will continue to be the civic mayor of Darwen through Darwen Town Council.

“The likelihood is that there is a process known as ‘charter trustees’, which would enable Blackburn to have a civic mayor of an equivalent status to the current mayor of Darwen.

“So that is the mechanism we are exploring.

“We felt it was important to mention it now because we understand that mayors are important, that people put a lot of store by them, and we don’t want a story developing that somehow this is going to disappear and there won’t be any more.

“We’re pretty clear there will be more — they will be different.

“They will be the mayor of Blackburn only and will probably be chosen in exactly the same way as they are currently.

“We wanted to make sure there was no great concern that this is the end of mayoralties as we know them.”

Cllr Riley spoke as the meeting confirmed Blackburn Central ward’s Cllr Mahfooz Hussain as mayor for 2026/27, with his Bastwell and Daisyfield Labour colleague Cllr Shaukat Hussain set to take over the role in 2027/28.

Conservative group leader Cllr John Slater said: “I welcome the clarity.

“It’ll be interesting to see how you develop the Blackburn scenario. As it stands at the moment, the Darwen mayor doesn’t have an attendant or a car, so I would hope Blackburn would follow that model in future so taxpayers aren’t burdened with another cost.”

Cllr Riley said: “There is a man who wants to buy our car number plate, so maybe this is the time to do it.”