PROJECTS to upgrade three theatre venues in Colne and the town’s market hall and bus station using over £6million of Government Levelling-Up funding will be discussed by Pendle councillors this week.

Over £3.4 million could be invested in The Muni, the Pendle Hippodrome and Colne Little Theatre to provide new and better facilities and build Colne’s night-time economy, councillors will be told this week.

And just over £3million is earmarked for Colne’s market hall and bus station, to improve the shops, build new affordable flats to encourage town centre living, boost the numbers of people passing by and improve the bus station facilities.

As part of the plans, parts of the market hall and bus station site could be sold to a joint venture group linked to the council, which includes a housing organisation and a private company, Barnfield Investment Properties as partners, who would carry out the work.

But councillors on the borough’s influential Policy & Resources Committee must agree to this.

The Colne theatres project will be led by the not-for-profit Pendle Leisure Trust, an organisation which manages council-owned leisure facilities on behalf of Pendle Borough Council.

A report for this week’s Policy & Resources Committee meeting states: “At the committee’s meeting in November, it was reported that we have been successful in obtaining £6.5million from round one of the Levelling Up Fund to deliver two projects in Colne town centre.

“We then had to submit a project management update and this was discussed with the Levelling Up Fund team in December. Some additional information was requested by the team and this had be submitted by January 14 but no significant concerns were raised.”

Now, a memorandum of understanding will be finalised and signed by a council officer. The draft memorandum indicates that all Levelling-Up Fund grant needs to be spent by the end of March 2025. At the time of the bid, the deadline was March 2024, so the council now has an extra 12 months as a contingency.

Pendle Council’s Policy & Resources Committee meeting is on Thursday in Nelson Town Hall at 7pm.