Our Chartered Building Surveyor, Gareth Clarke, was delighted to attend the opening event for several restored properties on St James Street, in Burnley.
The buildings are all located within the Town Centre Conservation Area, and within the Heritage Action Zone.
The heritage work at properties 156, 158, and 160 St James Street has been carried out to restore the old shop buildings, in conjunction with Burnley Council and the property owners.
The opening event on 1st March was attended by many people, including representatives from Burnley Council, English Heritage, from Penyard Limited, Andrew Higginbottom, the MP for Burnley, and the owners of the properties.
Following the ribbon cutting, the guests were invited into 160 St James Street, which is an Exhibition Gallery, where a new exhibition was opened which was a display of Special Shoes.
Representatives from Historic England were then invited to view ongoing building restoration works at 123 St James Street.
All project works were part funded by Historic England and contributions from the owners. Lea Hough have been involved from inception to completion. Our direct clients are the shop owners of the individual businesses, although our role has involved working very closely with conservation officers and the Economy and Growth department at Burnley Council, who in turn have liaised with Historic England.
The works have entailed full external restoration of the front elevations, including new shopfronts, oriel bay windows new traditional windows, repointing, roofing repairs, stone and masonry cleaning, and internal improvement works, etc. The main contractor on the scheme was Penyard Limited, who are based in Trawden.
More details of the heritage initiatives in Burnley can be found here:
Historic England: https://historicengland.org.uk/services-skills/heritage-action-zones/burnley/
Burnley Heritage Action Zone: http://www.burnleyhaz.org.uk/
Our Surveyor, Gareth Clarke commented: “It is such a privilege to be involved with overseeing the Heritage works on these important properties in Burnley town centre, which is my home town! These schemes are always very challenging but I really enjoy seeing the improvement of our town centre and working in conjunction with the great staff at Burnley Council and Historic England, as well as the individual business owners who have been great to deal with. The results are there to be seen with the vast improvement of the external facades and the interior of these important buildings.”
The opening of these three properties is the latest in a series of Heritage improvement works that were carried out on behalf of various Councils over the past decade or so and we will continue our good relationship and improvement works in Burnley town centre on behalf of Burnley Council.
For any information or if we can be of assistance with any building projects or indeed Heritage projects on behalf of your organisation or Council, please do not hesitate to contact us.
