The three phases of the Feilden Street buildings were constructed between 1953 and 1963 and officially opened by Lord Robens in 1964. Student enrolments in 1962/3 and 6/621 and numbers continued to increase. As local needs and the demands of central government have changed, the college has altered and expanded to meet them. The textile industry dominated the town for many years, but as it contracted, the study of textile manufacturing disappeared from the college syllabus. In the mid 1960s, the name was changed to Blackburn College of Technology and Design, but when the college became the main provider of tertiary education in the borough in 1984, it was shortened to Blackburn College.

More new buildings have been added: the Nab Lane engineering building in 1971, the School of Art in 1984, the renovated Blakey Moor school, which provides a home for the School of Business and Secretarial Studies, and in 1988, the New Technology Centre. Mr. Bickerdike could never have begun to imagine the array of state of the art computer systems in this building, but he would have approved of the way in which the college has taken the lead in making the latest developments in science and technology available to the people of Blackburn. In 1988, the college celebrated the centenary of its foundation. The highlight of the year was the visit to Blackburn on 2nd June of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. He came to the college and removed from the foundation stone the bottle which his great great grandfather had placed there a hundred years before. The contents were intact, despite rumours that the coins had been stolen by workmen during the construction of the building. A "time capsule" to represent 1988 was prepared by local schoolchildren and placed in the stone by Prince Charles.

During its first hundred years, the college has changed and developed far beyond anything that can have been foreseen by its founders, and no-one can predict what the next hundred years will bring, but when the Prince of Wales of 2088 comes to Blackburn to open up the stone again, he will surely find a college still serving the town according to the needs of the age.