DEMOLITION workers are poised to start knocking down Blackburn’s Jubilee House as the final bus shelter on the former Boulevard station is also removed.

The work is the final stage of clearing the central area of the town centre for the construction of the £30million Cathedral Quarter.

It means that the complex of two office blocks, a 56-bed Premier Inn hotel, clergy buildings, and cloister garden is on timetable for completion in 2016.

The Old Police House, in King Street, has been demolished for the final phase of Blackburn’s orbital road, linking in the £12million Wainwright ‘Bridge to Nowhere’.

It will connect Bolton Road and Preston Old Road, and go from Freckleton Street to Montague Street by the end of this year.

Removing the Boulevard bus station is now complete, but the completion of roadworks in Railway Road, to divert underground services away from the construction site, will continue for several days after tram tracks and a service pit were unexpectedly discovered.

Next month, hoardings will go up so work can start on the Clergy Court, the Cathedral’s new residential buil- ding which includes offices and a refectory open to the public.

Jubilee House was built as an office building during the 1930s on the site of the former Jubilee Street gas works complex.

Constructed of brown-red brick and moulded tiles, it is the former home of Blackburn with Darwen Council For Voluntary Service and Nightsafe.

It will become the car park for the adjacent new hotel, and overflow parking for the new development.

Work on the new £5million bus station on the Old Market site, in Ainsworth Street, is also due to start at the end of this month, for completion by the end of December.

Cathedral Canon Andrew Hindley, overseeing the development for the Blackburn Diocese, said: “I am delighted that it is all going ahead. It is all on target and on timetable.”

Council regeneration boss Maur-een Bateson said: “The Cathedral Quarter development is progressing well. The remaining bus stop on the Boulevard is coming down and all the street furniture has been removed.

“Preparations are now underway to demolish Jubilee House.”