Austin-Smith Lord was the executive architect on the £12.5m redevelopment of Liverpool’s oldest building, which was opened only two months ago.

He told B&E online that the best bit of news for everybody concerned was that no one was injured.

He said: “For the last three years Bluecoat Arts Centre has been my mainstay project. It is not something you ever want to happen to something that you’ve spent an awful lot of time working on.”

Approximately 40 firefighters were called to the blaze at 3.55am yesterday morning. A spokeswoman for the Mersey Fire & Rescue Service said although the fire was scaled down at around 9.40am, it still has a crew at the scene damping down the fire and ensuring it is all out and under control.

She said: “It was a kitchen fire. The first floor kitchen was 100% severely damaged by fire. The second floor was moderately damaged by the fire and the rest of the floor moderately damaged by smoke. The first floor restaurant was 100% severely damaged by smoke and there was some water damage to the ground floor.”

Kyffin, who is due onsite this afternoon added: “We just need to get the client back in there and up and running as soon as we possibly can. Thankfully the construction technology appears to have worked and contained the fire to the area, which it is supposed to be contained to.”

A fire investigation officer is looking to get into the building today to investigate the cause of the blaze.

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