THE £6 million centrepiece of the Cathedral Quarter development has started rising from the ground.

Workers have been busy on the Cathedral Court since the Bishop of Blackburn, Julian Henderson, laid the foundation stone earlier this month.

MORE TOP STORIES:

Officially known as Clergy Court, it will be the first suite of residential buildings complete with cloister garden at a major Church of England complex for 600 years.

Framework for the buildings is now being erected and they, when it is complete later this year, it will provide a library, refectory, conference room, an enclosed cloister garden, underground car park for 50 cars, four townhouses for the dean, cathedral canons and the director of music, six apartments for cathedral staff and six accommodation units for organ and choir scholars.

Building work is due to be completed by October. It will have a more classical design than the hotel.

Maureen Bateson, the borough council’s regeneration boss, said: “People can see every day that development is progressing.

“They can now see the headline of every building and begin to pick out what it will look like when it is finished.

“This is an exciting time. Work is progressing well.”

New under-croft parking will be formed at lower ground level below, tucking cars under the new building.

And The new development will be connected to the existing Cathedral fabric via glazed link bridge, which connects to the south Transept. Builders have also been working on the new office block, opposite Blackburn train station, by installing purple panels, which will form the base for stone cladding.

Glass is expected to be installed on the front of the Premier Inn hotel early next month too.

Cllr Bateson added: “Residents will really begin to see how the shape of the new Blackburn town centre will change in 2015.”

However, work to resurface Railway Road is likely to cause some disruption to traffic in April.

Cllr Bateson said it will be carried out during the Easter break in a bid to keep the disruption to a minimum.