A LANDMARK Burnley hotel is undergoing a £300,000 refurbishment to take it back to the 'good old days'.

The Keirby Hotel's new owners - Crown Properties - started the refurbishment three months ago after buying it from the Friendly Group in April last year.

The property company said it had no plans to sell the former Comfort Inn so it could make way for a bus station or asylum seekers' hostel.

The company has already upgraded the boiler and central heating system and has turned its attention to the outside, the bedrooms and function suites.

Workmen have already changed the hotel's signs and spruced up the outside but there are no plans to change the overall look of the exterior.

The seven-storey building was built in 1960 by the former Massey's Burnley Brewery and was named after a brewery which had stood on the site.

Peter Houlihan, the Keirby's resident manager, has worked in the hotel trade for 30 years and has a lot of experience of turning around hotels that are in a sorry state. He said: "I previously worked for another company at a hotel in Hanforth which we turned around. I left it with a new leisure centre.

"At the moment we're trying to build the Keirby back up to something like its previous reputation.

"I've never seen a hotel with so much potential.

"The work we're doing now should have been done more than ten years ago. We're slowly refurbishing the bedrooms and the public areas like the function rooms and Liz's bar, but we can't do much with the outside.

"It's a 1960s period building with many good points and drawbacks."

Mr Houlihan said the changes had started to make a difference and the number of guests had increased.

"We're full at the weekend and mid-week bookings are above the national average.

"When the Keirby first opened it was a hallmark of quality and graded four star but now it's two star.

"Our first goal is to regain the third star. The fifth and sixth floors are of that quality and the others are slowly going in the same direction."