PLANS to sell off a council-owned former restaurant building delayed because of the British Textile Biennial have been rescheduled.

The former Gioia restaurant in Church Street is currently hosting a series of new works by artist Jamie Holman, celebrating a history of radical gatherings where the working class youth of the north resisted, rejected, and finally reclaimed the spaces that cotton made and then abandoned.

The exhibition will run until November 3.

The council had been due to sell the building, which has council-owned offices above the former restaurant, at auction in October but decided to postpone the sale while the exhibition went ahead.

Now it has been confirmed that the building will go under the hammer at a Pugh Auction sale in Salford on December 3.

Gioia opened in Church Street in Blackburn in November 2017 in the former Rovers store.

The shop underwent a £100,000 investment and the Italian venture created 23 new jobs.

As well as a restaurant, Gioia had a quick-service deli counter, a wine bar and a play area.

It was one of many new restaurants to open in the town centre since the completion of the Cathedral Quarter development.

It followed hot on the heels of A Mano and Turtle Bay in Cathedral Square.

Hugo’s, East Z East and Frankie’s also all opened in the last two years.

But the business closed in May last year after struggling to attract enough custom.

The building at 50-54 Church Street, previously occupied by Gioia at the ground floor with the first and second floors used as offices, had been listed for sale through Pugh Auctions at a guide price of £400,000.

The British Textile Biennial programme states: "Transform and escape the dogs is a series of new works by artist Jamie Holman.

"From Malkin tower to Mill Hill; a defiant history of witches, hand loom poets, blacksmith painters, football casuals, and pioneer film makers, challenging accepted notions of textiles heritage, and of those people and events that have shaped us.

"These works propose a counter narrative of creativity, rebellion, and magic; exploring the real Industrial Revolution, a revolution of the soul that seeks to remind us: ‘when we gather, we become powerful. We cannot be kept down.’"