I WAS pleased to receive a couple of weeks ago a letter from Historic England assuring me that they were reviewing their support for the alterations to the east façade of the Town Hall to facilitate the proposed café and restaurant.

I am now delighted that those proposals have now been scrapped and that a much more sensible idea has been discovered of enhancing in-house catering to cover not only the 600 staff requirements but also to encourage the public use of such eating facilities and further promote the town hall as a wedding venue by transferring registrar functions from Mere Hall.

The sad thing about this whole saga is that much of the controversy wouldn’t have happened if the process of developing these ideas had received sound advice and counsel at an earlier stage.

The fault must lie with the make up of the two boards of PSP Bolton, the Limited Liability partnership which is tasked with coming up with ideas for better utilising council land and assets for the ultimate financial benefit of the ratepayer.

From a democratic point of view, this Board should have representation from all of the political groupings on the council.

Where the town’s heritage may be involved, I further suggest representation from the Civic Trust who have amply demonstrated a superior Vision in their recent public presentations of ideas for further enhancing the town centre.

It is also essential that a means is found to increase the transparency of PSP Bolton’s activities as recommended by the Audit Commission report of 2014 so the public has a glimpse of what is being proposed at an earlier stage.

All this is to ensure that the views of those residents of a certain age who were born and bred in Bolton and have lived here all their lives are not lost amidst the welter of ‘brilliant’ ideas thought up from hundreds of miles away by people who have no knowledge of or allegiance to the town.

Councillor Paul Richardson

Ripon Close

Little Lever