COUNCILLORS will consider £200,000 plans to breathe new life into Rawtenstall's celebrated Astoria Ballroom.

The project is due to be discussed at a meeting of Rossendale Council's corporate policy committee tomorrow.

The new scheme will mean the council chamber will be situated in the ballroom - doubling the space currently available to members.

Under the plans, the new town hall will be spilt into two levels, the first floor providing a council chamber, members room, committee room, meeting room, training room and ballot box storage.

The second floor will house the mayor's parlour as well as a kitchen and toilets.

New partition walls could be constructed, as well as new wiring, heating and IT systems installed.

Development control chairman Coun David Hancock said: "The planned scheme is the finished programme in relation to the development of the town centre which is to take off in the not too distant future.

"The planning application is expected from the developers in spring who are not being named because of commercially sensitive information.

"The scheme will improve the working arrangements to everybody at the council."

He said in the short term the idea was to bring the strategy section under one roof into the town hall while members used the Astoria.

He said: "The idea is to have all the people that are planning the future of the borough working together, rather than working in other parts of the valley."