Residents slam Issa brothers’ plans to flatten Blackburn hillside and build five mansions
Furious residents hit out at billionaire brothers’ ‘monstrous’ plans to flatten a hillside and build FIVE identical ‘super-sized’ homes dubbed ‘McMansions’
- Euro Garages owners Mohsin and Zuber Issa were brought up in a terraced house in Blackburn before they made their fortune from fuel and now they want to build mansions – just three miles from their family home
- The five huge homes would be 4.5 metres taller than a normal house and will see eight properties destroyed
- Proposal will go before the council’s planning and highways committee on September 20 but has already received several outraged objections for residents who say mansions are ‘monstrously big’
A pair of self-made billionaire brothers’ plans for five identical ‘super-sized’ homes dubbed ‘McMansions’ could be scrapped after a series of objections.
Euro Garages owners Mohsin, 46, and Zuber Issa, 45, had put in plans for five huge homes for their families to live in by demolishing eight properties.
The homes have been earmarked for construction along a countryside lane on the edge of Blackburn, Lancashire, after plans were lodged in April this year.
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The Issa brothers declined to comment on their most recent planning proposals in Blackburn. Pictured are the homes which will be destroyed (in red) if the plans are given the green light
But the proposal could be halted in its tracks after objections from residents who believe the mansions, 4.5 metres taller than other homes and with 1,500 square metres of space, will not ‘fit in with the local area’.
The plans could also fall foul of Blackburn and Darwen Council’s local plan and national policy framework due to their size.
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Resident Ian Woolley said: ‘They will look monstrously big – this is totally out of character, as all the other executive houses in this area are individually architect-designed and are laid out with plenty of valuable mature garden space between them.
‘The plans submitted look like a long, monotonous row of houses squeezed together.
The brothers have turned their attention closer to home and lodged a planning application for a quintet of mansions to be built in Blackburn
It is believed plans, submitted on behalf of the brothers, will see eight homes which belong to them knocked down to make way for five ‘super-sized’ homes. Pictured (in red) are the homes which will be destroyed and the new mansions which could be built (in green)
‘The plans must surely be revised so that local residents would be pleased to welcome what could be a most prestigious development.’
Euro Garages owners Mohsin, 46, and Zuber Issa, 45, were brought up in a two-up two-down terraced house in Blackburn before they made their fortune from fuel
While another objection read: ‘The proposed scheme in its current form has the potential to jeopardise the character and charm of the area, which I feel would have a negative impact on the whole borough.’
The plan will go before the council’s planning and highways committee on September 20.
A statement submitted as part of the application reads: ‘The existing dwellings are all early 20th century with no distinguished architectural merit in varying styles.
‘The scale of the proposed dwellings are slightly larger than that of the existing dwellings however they are fewer in numbers, this allows for more spacious positioning across the site.
‘The form and massing of the properties are traditional in their layouts; a central entrance hall and stair connects two wings of the dwelling at ground floor.
‘The layout has been informed by the clients brief and its intended use as a large family home centred around social family gatherings.’
The Issa brothers were brought up in a two-up two-down terraced house in Blackburn, Lancshire, just three miles from their mansion plans, before they made their fortune from fuel.
The brothers founded Euro Garages with a £150,000 site in Bury, Greater Manchester. The firm is now the EU’s largest independent fuel retailer with annual sales of £5bn.
They snapped up the controversial Knightsbridge pad – that will be 25 times the size of the average British home – last year for a whopping £25m.
The view from Billinge End Road, where many residents have already complained, as it currently looks, before the eight houses are destroyed and replaced by the planned McMansions
The string of houses, if given the go-ahead, will be located just under three miles away from the Issa brothers’ childhood two-up two-down home
The brother’s Knightsbridge property, in Brompton Square, is 25 times the size of the average English home
The Grade II listed Georgian house – at the centre of a long-running planning row – was put on the market in September last year after being left an eyesore building site for nine years.
Estate agents predict the property could be worth £80m when work to create a so-called ‘iceberg basement’ which will include a swimming pool, gym, music room, and cinema has been completed.
The previous owner began digging a basement and left a vast 30ft-deep crater the size of two tennis courts, described by horrified neighbours to ‘Hitler’s bunker’.
When finished the luxury 22,000 sq ft home will have a huge underground car park, a swimming pool, spa, and cinema – and could be worth £80million.
The project was abandoned when workers downed tools in 2008, and in 2011 the property was sold for £28million to a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
The Issa brothers declined to comment on their most recent planning proposals in Blackburn.
Rags to riches! Self-made billionaire brothers who have gone from the back streets of Blackburn to £25million mansion in Knightsbridge
They were brought up in a terraced house after their father came to Britain to work in the textiles industry.
Four decades on, Mohsin and Zuber Issa’s journey from the back streets of Blackburn to the top of the property ladder appears complete.
The self-made billionaires, who own Euro Garages, Europe’s biggest independent forecourt firm, have just bought a £25million Knightsbridge mansion – although they are unlikely to move in any time soon.
Mohsin and Zuber Issa’s journey from the back streets of Blackburn to the top of the property ladder appears complete
The spectacular Georgian property, which features one of the swish London district’s biggest gardens, has been a building site for years after the previous owner ran out of money while extending the basement.
With planning permission to create a three-storey iceberg-style basement, it will put the seal on a stunning rags-to-riches which began when their Indian immigrant parents came to Lancashire in the 1960s.
Their woollen mill worker father Vali and mother Zubeda were living at a two-up, two-down terraced house on Balaclava Street in Blackburn when Mohsin and Zuber were born in the early 1970s.
Standing in one of the network of streets that became home to thousands of immigrants from the sub-continent drawn to the Lancashire town in the decade, even today the property is worth around £115,000.
Estate agents reckon that when Mohsin, 46, and his 45-year-old brother have finished work to create a so-called iceberg basement descending three storeys to include a garage with a vehicle lift, a swimming pool, gym, music room, cinema plus three additional bedrooms, the whole property could be worth £80million.
The two-up, two-down in Blackburn that the brothers grew up in
The original home has grand reception rooms with a master bedroom suite taking up the whole second floor.
The top two storeys have five further bedrooms with kitchen, reception room and formal dining room on the ground floor – giving access to the restored garden.
It is a far cry from the two-up, two-down the brothers grew up in – which even today is worth just £115,000 – after their Indian parents came to Lancashire in the 1960s to work in a woollen mill.
By contrast, their new, 22,000sq ft Brompton Square home is 25 times the size of the average British home.
The Issa brothers started Euro Garages 22 years ago with a £150,000 site in Bury. The firm is now the EU’s largest independent fuel retailer, with annual sales of £5billion.
Managing director Mohsin and chief executive Zuber are reckoned to be worth £1billion – up by £300million in a the past year.
Today they live in large, neighbouring detached houses on a private, gated development on the outskirts of Blackburn.
By contrast, the Brompton Square property is 25 times the size of the average English home.
Former owner Achilleas Kallakis began digging a basement to house a swimming pool, spa, cinema and car lift in the mid-2000s.
The project was abandoned in 2008 and the garden remains a 30ft-deep building site dominated by more than a dozen 60ft long piles, a ‘vast chasm’ likened by horrified neighbours to Hitler’s bunker.
It was put on the market last month by its then owner – a British Virgin Islands-registered company – with Savills for £25 million.
It was billed as ‘exceptional opportunity to create a spectacular family home of over 22,000 square feet in this elegant Knightsbridge garden square’.
And despite a slow market, it was snapped up almost straight away.
Land Registry documents show Monte Blackburn Limited, a company controlled by the Issa brothers, is behind the purchase.
A spokesman for the brothers declined to comment on their intentions for the property yesterday.
Under planning permission secured by the vendor, the whole of the basement’s bottom floor would be an underground garage complete with vehicle lift.
Above that would be the swimming pool and gym, with other layers of the basement featuring a ‘family space’ including music room and cinema plus three additional bedrooms.
The original home is to have grand entertaining rooms with a huge master bedroom suite taking up the whole of the second floor.
The top two storeys would have five further bedrooms with kitchen, reception room and formal dining room on the ground floor – giving access to the restored garden.
Giles Cook, from central London estate agency Best Gapp, described it as a ‘trophy home in waiting’ which represented a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ and could be worth as much as £80 million when the building work is completed.
Kallakis was jailed in 2013 for seven years after duping banks of more than £740million by posing as a Mayfair property tycoon.
His sentence was later extended by four years after an appeal by the Serious Fraud Office.
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