INTERESTING to see your recent article about Beales department store.

The MD of the company has been invited to Bolton by the leader of the council.

What he will find is an increasingly run down, poor town centre which really no longer has the wherewithal to sustain a shop of Beale's quality.

He should know before he arrives that in the view of most Boltonians the council in no way heed the popularly held views of the townspeople.

The Market Hall is a testament to this attitude. A superb building and facility ruined, it was once a popular attraction for people from all over the region, but now it is a soulless clone of every other shopping centre in the country.

Bring this to the council's attention and the response is airy-fairy politico double speak.

The Town Hall square canopy is the latest put your foot in it faux pas by our representatives.

My charity (Animals Asia) uses the facility frequently — and pays for it!

It produces a good part of our income which is used to help rescue bears from the dreadful Chinese bile farms. Over the past year, the council has gradually made it more difficult for the canopy to be used.

It has banned the parking of one car next to the building, it has made access to the square less easy.

In June of last year, we wrote a very polite letter to the council complaining about the lack of maintenance, the non-working lights, the leaking roof, the blocked guttering and the general dirtiness of the site when we came to use it. We are still waiting for a reply.

In conclusion, I would suggest that the town councillors who spend our hard-earned money, come down from their publicly paid for ivory towers and get some feeling for the opinions of the man and woman in the street whose interest they so often insist they have at heart.

In my experience, with a few exceptions, they don't.

Graham Austin Reddish Close Harwood