ONE of Burnley’s most historic leisure facilities could be given a fresh lease of life as a kitchen manufacturing base.

Bosses at United Furniture (AB)Ltd have identified the former Gannow Baths, in Sycamore Avenue, as a potential headquarters.

For the best part of a decade the building, which dates back 114 years, was used by the Life Church in Burnley.

But new proposals lodged with the borough council would incorporate both floors of the old pool, with a two-bedroom being incorporated into the upper level.

Planning agent Alan Kinder as applied to the authority for a change of use classification from a place of worship for mixed retail and residential purposes.

Currently the firm, which has seven employees and makes kitchen units and bedroom furniture, is based in Rushworth Street and was first incorporated last September by Reedley-based director Fiaz Ahmed.

Woodworking machinery would be moved into the space formerly taken up by the pool on the ground floor.

Jeff Brunton, minister at the Life Church, said: “We were in the building from April 2005 until we moved into our new church in November 2014.”

He confirmed that the old baths was still owned by the church, which had been in negotiations with the potential new owner.

The pool, on the banks of the Leeds Liverpool Canal, was closed by the borough council in 2004 after leisure bosses insisted that it was being run at a significant loss.

Later the Life Church bought the building, and the adjoining field, with the intention of creating a new main building on the site.

The borough’s swimming provisions have changed significantly since Gannow Baths was declared surplus to requirements.

The former Thompson Centre, off Red Lion Street, was replaced by a joint health and leisure complex, St Peter’s, in Church Street, and major improvements have been made to Padiham Leisure Centre.