A town centre car park will close for 18 months in order to allow a major overhaul of an historic building.

Work is currently ongoing to makeover the Maison Dieu town hall in Dover, which is estimated to cost £10.5 million in total.

As such, the next-door car park in Ladywell will be closed and turned into a compound for the works.

It will shut to drivers from Monday, January 23 for an estimated 18 months.

A spokesman for Dover District Council, which is overseeing the renovation project, said: “The reawakening of the Grade I-listed town hall is the council’s most ambitious heritage restoration project to date and is set to transform the fortunes of the iconic town centre building.

“Hoardings are also being extended to widen the existing compound along the south side of the Maison Dieu, whilst scaffolding will be erected along the entire length of the Ladywell side of the Maison Dieu with a pedestrian ‘tunnel’ to allow safe access along the pavement."

A bin store used by residents of the former art college flats, The Hive and Biggin Hall, is being moved to a new site near the entrance to the car park.

Once the overhaul of the Maison Dieu is complete, it will see the building opened to the public for the first time.

Members of DDC say the works will breath new life into the town centre.

Cllr Trevor Bartlett, leader of DDC, said: "The project will bring the Maison Dieu to life as one of the most significant civic heritage buildings in the country, ensuring that it plays a key role in the future of Dover as a heritage, cultural and community venue.

"Bringing a restoration project of this size to reality has taken a huge amount of work by specialist architects and conservators, and the in-house team at DDC, and would not have been possible without the incredible support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Wolfson Foundation, Dover Society and Dover Town Council.

The Maison Dieu, or House of God, was founded in the early 1200s by Hubert de Burgh and passed to King Henry III in 1227, when the earliest surviving part of the building, the Chapel, was consecrated in his presence.