Something needs to be done with Blackburn’s former multi storey town hall tower block.
In Blackburn town centre we have a large problem. It’s called the town hall tower block. Unfortunately, due to council financial cutbacks, staffing numbers have been reduced through natural wastage and redundancies. We also have the situation where the town centre’s tallest and most noticeable building – the tower block – has also been made redundant. It may be empty, but is still costing council tax payers money due to energy and maintenance costs.
One answer to this problem is to try and find a way of putting the tower block back into use. This building is in an ideal location, right in the middle of our town centre. But what it needs is some way of attracting interested parties into moving into this building. It means there needs to be some way of promoting the tower block to encourage any potential occupiers to consider moving in.
Blackburn has always been a creative town. It’s led to various ideas to promote our empty multi-storey block. One fun suggestion has been to create Lego style model sets of the building. This idea may have come from some famous buildings around the world, such as Barcelona’s famous Sagrada Familia Cathedral. It is still unfinished after over a century of construction. So its Lego model would need to be upgraded too. Hopefully a Blackburn town hall tower block version wouldn’t take as long to finish as Sagrada Familia.
Talk of a Lego style model of the tower block has generated a lot of hilarity, leaving people in pieces. But it seems to have created an unexpected interest amongst Lego fans. The council has latched on to this, believing it may be something to build upon. The model set would make an ideal gift for children and adult Lego enthusiasts. The latter are known for their extreme devotion to this pastime.
To get round any problems with copyright issues, a new company would need be set up to manufacture gift sets of the model tower block. It will be known not as Lego, but as ‘Legover’. This is a combination of Lego and the name of the town’s football team. Seeing people working on these tower block models in public spaces and buildings could be the foundation for promoting usage of the tower block. It could also reinvigorate interest from the general public into taking an interest in the future of Blackburn’s former new town hall.
You never know, if the model tower block building block’s a success, we might even get a jigsaw puzzle next.