Barnfield lined up for Blackburn church redevelopment

Funding from a range of sources is now in place to reinvent St John the Evangelist church as a business centre, with the £8.9m project set for sign-off.

Blackburn with Darwen Council’s executive will meet this evening to rubber-stamp the appointment of Lancashire firm Barnfield Construction to deliver the redevelopment of a listed structure heavily damaged by fire in April 2019.

Consented in late 2023, the scheme has been designed by OMI Architects, and is advancing now after various pieces of a funding jigsaw were locked into place.

The total cost for the project is estimated at around £8.85m, of which £800,000 has been spent to date.

The council agreed a financial settlement with insurer Zurich of £3.8m for damage sustained during the 2019 blaze, a sum reduced to £3,5m after costs.

A further £4m comes from Lancashire County Council Combined Authority, while there is a £800,000 budget reallocation from the government’s Pride in Place programme (the former Levelling-Up Partnership fund) from the Bridge House project, which will instead be funded from Section 106 receipts.

Finally, there is a request to sign off the transfer of £510,000 from the existing capital programme into the project, made up of underspent capital of £200,000 from completed demolition schemes; the remaining budget of £75,000 from the 2025/26 Development Investment Fund; and a budget reallocation of £235,000 from the 2026/27 Development Investment Fund.

St John’s was built in 1787, and continued in active worship until 1975, when it was transferred to the council from the Church Commissioners for England, and was subsequently used for civic and community functions.

Following the fire, a professional team was put in place to advance the redevelopment as a business hub, including OMI, Turner & Townsend, Renaissance Associates and Max Fordham.

The redevelopment proposals, as set out in an officer report, will create high-specification flexible workspaces through repair, restoration and refurbishment works.

The new St John’s Business Centre will focus on digital and cyber businesses forming a new creative hub to promote growth opportunities linked to the National Cyber Force and complement the new Blackburn Skills Campus and the wider Business Innovation District development. Around 20,000 sq ft will be created across four floors.

BwD Council tendered the job in May 2025.