GALLERY | Blackburn bosses hail revival of an icon

Reopened this month after a £13.5m makeover, King George’s Hall is ready to anchor the town’s emerging cultural quarter, Place North West was told.

Following initial works at the site, the hall closed in January 2025 for the main phase of construction, reaching the finish line in time for a busy autumn programme of events.

King George’s Hall received an £8m contribution from the Levelling Up Fund, a sum that would bring King George’s Hall up to speed in terms of essential works required. Central government provided £12.5m in total, with various funding sources being leveraged by Blackburn with Darwen Council, which itself put in £1m, stretching the overall project to a point where it believes will add a wow factor in an age when punters are demanding more and more from the live experience.

Place spoke with Cllr Quesir Mahmood, deputy leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council, and executive member for growth and development; and on the officer side Andrew Barrow, head of property, projects and programmes.

How long had redeveloping King George’s Hall been an aspiration of the local authority?  

Cllr Mahmood: “From the council’s point of view, we’d long held a desire to do this, but we knew that with a 100-year old building, there were going to be significant challenges. Luckily, we managed to secure £8m through the Levelling Up Fund, and the council was able to find the rest of the money to deliver this £13.5m project.”

Andrew Barrow: “We’ve always been very mindful that this is a grade two-listed asset, and the project had to be approached with real care. Not only is it the borough’s largest performance complex, it’s the strategic anchor of Blackburn’s cultural quarter, and probably one of the North West’s most iconic performance venues. You can tell it’s lived a life, there’s some really impressive stuff, but there were a lot of issues too.

“Another factor is that it’s not just a performance  space: the registrar service is also in the building, and now there is also the cultural quarter’s flagship restaurant, Akbar’s. This is not a project working in isolation, either: it sits alongside Blackburn College’s £30m project, and the Blakey Moor Terrace project (a £3.8m part-Lottery funded heritage restoration). There’s the old town hall, the Exchange building, the Making Rooms. There are a lot of pieces in the jigsaw, but King George’s Hall is the biggest piece.”

Cassidy + Ashton, stalwart of the Lancashire property scene, was a key partner of the council, helping ensure that the local authority fulfilled all obligations relating to the LUF conditions, and providing clarity on the scope of what could be done with the building, through various stages of due diligence and surveys.

That, in effect, was phase one of the project, says Barrow, with phase two being the process of taking the proposals through the planning and listed building consent process. The final strand was procurement, with the council electing to pursue s JCT management contract that would allow the start of work on something that needed some urgent TLC – the roof, a £1m job.

Conlon Construction was engaged as the project’s main contractor.

Barrow: “I’d worked with Conlon previously on the redevelopment of Preston Bus Station, so knew they’d approach this with a lot of respect for the listed structure – that’s an important part of the process.

“It was always going to be a complex job, and we identified a number of areas where advanced works would be required. This included asbestos removal, the opening up of rear access at the site, strip-out of the boilerhouse, intrusive M&E surveys.”

Cllr Mahmood: “The roof was the first big challenge, as it hadn’t been looked at in years. Then the M&E was a major job, a real layer by layer project, but something that needed to be done and will make it fit for years to come. Structurally, the building was pretty sound, but there’s all the stuff like heating and cooling which isn’t something people notice when they look at a building.

“If there had been an endless pot of money, we could have kept going, but I think it’s phenomenal wat we’ve achieved with the £13.8m spent. People will really appreciate the value. We needed to invest in an uplift of the customer experience, and we have.”

Like many sports and leisure projects, the amenity level is key. People need access to food & drink, and toilets, in large volumes in short time windows. This was an area where having buy-in from different areas of focus proved invaluable.  

Barrow: “Design teams tend to be property-orientated, and councillors people-orientated, so you need to bring the two disciplines together and smooth the edges. I know the project is better for that political commitment.

“There were challenges throughout – not least because of the scale of the cultural quarter’s regeneration. Every project needs a compound, and every project needs access. They all need to use the same highway network. The challenge not to have the town centre grind to a halt was a big one.”

In total, there’s about £50m being put to work across Blackburn’s cultural quarter.  The council is in the final stages of negotiations about bringing a pub and two restaurants to the area as efforts to expand the night-time economy step up. Akbar’s is already in place.

Cllr Mahmood: “For the last two years, the Cultural Quarter’s probably not been looking its best, as there have been continuous works – hoardings and scaffolding covering everything up. So there’s probably been an element of people not ‘getting it’ but we’ve always been ale to see hat we’re trying to achieve.

“To get close to 500 people in for the opening night, buying tickets, when we expected nowhere near that, was wonderful to see. The sun shone, it was a perfect evening. For me, that showed the potential of what a revived Cultural Quarter can do for the town.”

This has been a proudly Lancastrian job – Cassidy + Ashton providing various services, including construction management, architectural services and assistance on cost planning. Main contractor Conlon is headquartered in Bamber Bridge. Kingswood Building Services Engineers and M&E contractor Chris Bowker.

Key local employer Perspex headed a list of other local firms contributing their expertise in various ways, while local artist Jamie Holman has new work in pride of place.

Barrow: “From the moment people arrive into the foyer, everything’s been thought about carefully. All the walls have been repainted, the floor surfaces are all new, there’s just a very strong feeling of newness and freshness. The lighting is really impressive – it’s respectful of the traditional setting, but has an element of modernity, as it also functions as emergency lighting.”

Cllr Mahmood: “Previously, the feel was more of a civic hall, but now it feels more like an arts-focused building. We wanted people to feel that this is a performance space, a real destination.”

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