Conversion of legendary Preston nightclub approved

A legendary Preston nightspot that reverberated to the music of the moment for more than half a century is to be turned into a storage facility.

The conversion of the Market Street venue that most recently operated as Switch – but which had a series of well-remembered guises down the decades – has been given the go ahead by Preston City Council.

The club, within Lowthian House in the city centre, opened as Squires and Snooty’s back in 1967.   It later evolved into Squires and Quincy’s, before becoming plain Squires – during what was probably its most iconic era – from 1979.

Later years saw reincarnations of the two-room attraction as New York New York and, after a £250,000 revamp, Cameo and Vinyl in 2014.   

The venue’s rebirth as Switch – when a third room was added – came in 2017 after a near 12-month hiatus during which the building had been bereft of revellers.

However, the nightclub will remain silent after its latest year-long shutdown.  The application seeking permission for the repurposing of the space revealed that it had not been possible to find a new operator to run the venue – and now town hall planners have approved a proposal to convert the basement and part of the ground floor of the building into a self-storage business. 

A total of 85 ‘Kuboid’ storage units will be provided as part of the new venture, ranging in size from 16 to 200 square feet.   Round-the-clock access will be managed via a booking and electronic entry system, primarily using an existing loading bay and layby off Ringway.

Highways officials at Lancashire County Council had initially raised several concerns about the plans – including the possibility that vehicles may arrive without booking and obstruct others that use the layby to service other parts of the building and the adjoining Iceland store, causing traffic to back up onto the A59.   They also highlighted the risk of the pedestrianised Lowthian Street being used for unauthorised parking.

As a  result,  a special ‘service and delivery management statement’ was requested from the applicant, Ringway Ltd., setting out how the issues would be dealt with.   The document includes a commitment that only one or two vehicles will be allowed to book at the same time, with CCTV monitoring of the area also being put in place.

A specific condition outlawing parking on Lowthian Street has been attached to the permission.  

There will be no changes to the exterior of the building as part of the overhaul.   The conversionof the site was deemed suitable by city council planning officers, because it will not lead to the loss of “primary shopping frontage or active ground floor space”.