Plans are being considered over land adjacent to Blackburn Bus Station for building mixed-use housing.

This development’s name comes from its proximity to the much sought-after Penny Street which owes its own name to the price of property rental on this street back in 19th century Blackburn.

Along with rented accommodation, affordable 25% shared ownership property could be available to buy. There is also an exciting option of hostel dwellings being included in the mix. This could help satisfy our town’s growing demand for homeless accommodation and ease pressure on finding units for housing remand clients, currently on bail.

A novel approach is to be put in place where all residents who move into these dwellings agree to have a small tracking chip injected into their shoulder. This would be painless and would biodegrade into their body after two years, before following nature’s process of removal. There would be no need for tag wearers to feel embarrassed anymore when somebody asking them the time wants to know why they wear their watch on their leg.

Some wags though have likened the name Penny Farthing Village to Portmeirion in Wales, home of 1960’s TV series: ‘The Prisoner’. They say most of its residents will probably be living there at Her Majesty’s pleasure anyway. But people behind these proposals say whoever made these kinds of comments needs locking up. They are proud to announce their intention to take residents under their wing.

Diversity is the key to Penny Farthing Village. Entry to each dwelling will be by use of retinal scanning. It was thought a similar method using fingerprints may put off some potential residents, reminding them of the process they went through to give them board and lodging in their previous accommodation.

But in a similar vein for people with experience of identifying by numbers, properties on this development will follow the same model as Blackburn’s innovative Romney Walk experiment. This is where every house and flat has its own individual number and these follow each other in sequence around the estate, despite the road names changing. They may have been named after the Cinque Ports, but nobody has ever been left out of sync finding their bearings around Romney Walk.

Proposals for Penny Farthing Village are expected to be submitted at the council’s next housing committee cycle. If the committee doesn’t back-pedal with these plans, a chain of events could soon be put in place to set the wheels in motion.