PLANS to refurbish Blackburn’s historic town hall have been unveiled.

A planning application has been submitted to Blackburn with Darwen Council laying out detailed proposals to renovate the third and fourth floors of the 19th century listed building, which doubles as the main offices for the local authority.

The scheme involves the restoration and modernisation of some of the empty utilitarian spaces of the top two floors of the municipal offices at the rear of the Town Hall proper.

The scheme will restore a large room on the fourth floor with a barrel vault ceiling, the original function of which is not currently known.

Finally, both the third and fourth floors will be sensitively redecorated and fitted out as a modern workplace.

Currently, the existing office layouts to the fourth floor cater for small offices for managers and directors with their teams located to other adjoining offices.

The revised layouts allow for open plan office spaces where directors/managers and their team members will work in the same office together for the benefits of creativity and teamwork.

A number of functional offices on the fourth floor will be sensitively opened out in a manner which preserves enough of the walls to illustrate the original room layouts.

Bosses say opening the rooms out in this way will allow the offices to become practical spaces for present day circumstances, thereby bringing the municipal offices back into use.

Growth Lancashire heritage and conservation officer, David Morris, said: "With the exception of the presently subdivided large room with a barrel vaulted ceiling, all the rooms are utilitarian offices often subdivided or knocked through and with unattractive suspended ceilings.

"Many have original ceiling coving, picture rails and panelled door sets, sometimes modified with glass.

"The intention is to respect this character and restore it where lost.

"The barrel vaulted room will be opened out and its broad character restored.

"The corridors are robustly but attractively designed with terrazzo floors and neo-Georgian styled doors.

"The individual offices have been altered many times and their historic and aesthetic character is not well preserved."

Last year, the council unveiled plans to move staff to the tower block building while refurbishment works were carried out at Blackburn Town Hall as part of a £6.5m accommodation strategy.

But financial constraints mean the plan has been scaled back and now costs £1.95m.