IT would appear that Kevin Walsh did not read my last letter which showed how a proactive Bolton Council is instrumental in ensuring that Bolton town centre is holding its own in difficult economic circumstances.

His latest letter (September 12) now goes on to make a series of wild and groundless accusations. Not content with just knocking Bolton on behalf of the local Lib Dems, he has moved on to other townships by claiming that shop vacancy rates in places like Westhoughton and Horwich are substantially high. I would be interested to see where he got the evidence to make this claim. He denigrates our boroughs shops without making any reference to the thriving shopping communities in places like Derby Street, Blackburn Road, Tonge Moor Road, Dean Road and Bury Road to name just some, and forgets to mention the £10 million investment plan by St Modwen into Farnworth Town Centre.

He accepts completely that Bolton has fewer shop vacancies than most of its rivals in Greater Manchester, yet tries to pour cold water over this by claiming that this is due to the Market Place improvements and other redevelopment sites! This in itself is obviously nonsense, but that said – only the local Lib Dems would actually try to argue that Moorgarth investing millions of pounds into the Market Place is a bad thing. He claims the council does not do enough to help local businesses and then scorns the direct investments into businesses at Newport Street, as ill thought out. I suggest it is the arguments Mr Walsh puts forward that are ill thought out.

Mr Walsh doesn’t challenge me on the fact that Bolton Council has no control on business rates and shop rents, something he now presumably realises, however he makes an even stranger implication that the council is responsible for private sector wages. This is purely within the influence of Government. Mr Walsh has the audacity to blame the council for being in the unenviable position of attempting to facilitate jobs growth against a backdrop of low wages. In a previous letter, Mr Walsh sneered at the growth of pound shops, without even realising that this was also as a direct result of his party's low wages policy.

In my last letter, I challenged Mr Walsh and his Lib Dem colleagues to stop knocking Bolton, which affects investor decisions and thus affects jobs, and instead he should back Bolton. It’s clear what his answer to that is. I have said that there are many problems and lots more needs to be done with the town centre, but we have turned a corner, and whether Mr Walsh likes it or not, we will be continuing with our regeneration plans to make the improvements we all want to see and to bring more investment and more jobs to this borough.

Cllr Nick Peel

Councillor for Tonge with the Haulgh Ward

Executive Cabinet Member for Environmental Services