Funding secured for Padiham Town Hall business hub

Moves are underway to transform part of Padiham Town Hall into a business hub as part of wider proposals to improve the town centre.

More than £330,000 of Growth Deal funding has been secured from the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to cover the cost of the programme of refurbishment work to the first floor of the Grade II listed building.

The £331,379 funding, which has been approved subject to contract, will see 3,000 sq ft of office space which has been unused since the 2015 floods transformed into high-quality office and co-working space to meet the needs of small businesses.

Councillor Gordon Birtwistle, Burnley Council’s executive member for economy and growth, said: “This is good news for Padiham. The LEP funding will help breathe new life into this historic building in the heart of the town and support new and growing businesses.

“It is part of the council’s wider plans to improve Padiham town centre. The re-development of the first floor of the town hall to create a business hub which will provide a modern and flexible working space that caters for a wide range of businesses.

“The proposals will bring new businesses and visitors to the town’s main street, supporting existing businesses and building on other activity to regenerate the historic centre through the £1.3m Townscape Heritage Initiative”.

The funding is in addition to the £10.9m already secured by the council from the LEP and the Environment Agency for public realm improvements and flood defence works.

Chairman of the LEP Steve Fogg said: “This project, which is subject to contracting, is a great example of how the LEP uses Growth Deal funds to support economic growth and job creation. In this case it’s by funding improved infrastructure to support business growth in the Padiham area and, at the same time, boosting the vitality of the town centre by putting empty space to good use.

“This initiative is part of an overall investment by the LEP in this part of Burnley borough totalling £4.9m so far which aims to regenerate and protect Padiham town centre and the local area and unlock land for development.

“The LEP’s £320m Growth Deal programme is supporting strategically important projects like this all across Lancashire which, combined, will lay the foundation for significant growth in the county’s economy for years to come.”

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About Lancashire’s Growth Deal Programme:

In the last three years the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has successfully secured £320 million of Growth Deal investment from the Government’s Local Growth Fund.

This funding, one of the largest Growth Deal settlements to be allocated to a Local Enterprise Partnership, is designed to help improve and upgrade existing commercial infrastructure, kickstart new economic initiatives, and unlock additional private investment to drive further growth across the county.

More than 50 projects have directly benefitted from the LEP’s Growth Deal Programme. These include:

• New and improved transport connections including the Blackburn-Bolton Rail Corridor; the Broughton bypass; the Centenary Way viaduct; and the Hyndburn-Burnley-Pendle Growth Corridor;
• World-class higher education, research and vocational skills provision and facilities including UCLan’s flagship Engineering and Innovation Centre; the national Energy HQ in Blackpool; Lancaster’s Health Innovation Campus; and Myerscough College’s Food & Farming Innovation Centre;
• A wide-ranging package of regeneration programmes specifically for Blackpool including a new international conference centre at the Winter Gardens complex; the development of Blackpool town centre ‘Green Corridors’; traffic management, bridge and road improvements and an extension of Blackpool’s tram network.

The Growth Deal programme will help to generate up to 11,000 new jobs, create 3,900 new homes and attract £1.2 billion of additional public and private investment for Lancashire.

Lancashire’s Growth Deal programme is also fully aligned to other major economic initiatives such as the £450 million Preston, South Ribble and Lancashire City Deal, the £20 million Growing Places Investment Fund, and the Lancashire Advanced Manufacturing and Energy Enterprise Zone Cluster.

For more information visit www.lancashirelep.co.uk