THE first stages in the £6m redevelopment of a public hall in a County Durham market town could begin in the new year.

Trustees of the Witham Hall, in Barnard Castle, County Durham, are hoping they will soon be able to appoint a project manager who would lead the redevelopment of the Victorian hall in the town's market place.

The revamped hall would include a 176-seat theatre, cafe, dance hall and technology suite, as well as offices and meeting rooms.

Bids were submitted to several funding bodies before Christmas which, if successful, would fund the appointment of the full-time project manager, who would help generate the finance for the major works on the hall.

The chairman of the trustees, Roy Tranter, said: "It's like a project manager but it's a lot more than that.

"We would be looking to them to do the day-to-day management of the activities that we would need to take the scheme forward, such as contacting funding organisations and helping with sponsorship and helping fill in applications, so it's quite a wide range of things."

The trustees expect to hear whether they have been successful in their funding application in about six weeks.

Planning permission for the redevelopment was granted in the summer and Mr Tranter said he hoped work at the front of the building would begin in a few months.

He said: "It's getting very close now and we are almost at the stage where we are thinking, 'yes'. It depends on the funding coming through.

"It can be time-consuming filling in the applications, but there's been a tremendous amount going on in the background."

Once work starts on the hall, it will be carried out in phases to allow parts of the hall to remain open and to minimise disruption.