TWO East Lancashire museums will close to the public on Friday as negotiations to find someone to run them continue.

However, both Queen Street Mill Museum in Burnley and the Helmshore Mills Textile Museum in Rossendale will continue with school visits after the closures.

Lancashire County Council has said organisations had submitted detailed business plans for the future operations of the museums but there would not be open every day after it stopped supporting the venues on Friday.

A council spokesman said that educational visits would still go ahead during the rest of the year as the prospective party who could be taking over see them as important to the museums’ future.

After Friday’s closures care and maintenance plans will be put in place to ensure they are looked after, preserved properly and kept safe and secure.

Council chiefs said they hope negotiations will conclude as soon as possible and the transfers will be made by the end of the year.

A petition to save the museums has reached more than 10,000 signatures.

The council is not naming those organisations which have applied to take over the running of the five museums.

County Cllr Marcus Johnstone, cabinet member for environment, planning and cultural services, said: “There is obviously still a lot of work to do but it is very encouraging to see such robust and well-thought-through business plans.

“In an ideal world we would not have been forced into this position but as we no longer have the funding to keep these cultural resources open we can at least do a thorough job to ensure that they have a sustainable future.”

Becky Parkinson, who live close Queen Street Mill, said the museum was very important for the area.

She said: “As a Briercliffe resident, I’m devastated about the impending loss of Queen Street Mill.

“I based my decision to live in area as well as my university dissertation on the history of Burnley, dominantly featured on the mill itself.

“A solution to keep it open must be found as it’s deeply unsettling what will happen when it closes.

“Queen Street has provided Burnley with history and my house, which was built for the workers in its heyday.

“It will be a shame for the children to lose the education it brings.”