THE Bolton News is 100 per cent correct in its views on the town centre.

As everyone who works or visits there knows, it has become a soulless, tatty conglomeration of empty, postered shops, charity shops, bookkeepers and bargain shops.

The iconic Prestons of Bolton and Whitakers (latterly Beales) lie empty and the one remaining jewel, the Market Centre, is surrounded by a plethora of retail rubbish and student accommodation.

Bradshawgate, once a thriving street of fashionable restaurants, shops, wine bars and banks, is now a disgrace.

Upper Knowsley Street, from the town hall to Trinity Street station, is a scruffy backwater, and much of Deansgate is the same.

Unfortunately, the new developments in Great Moor St and the interchange will become the same within 10 years or less as landlords fail to find quality tenants willing to pay high rents and rates.

Bolton Council should hold its head in shame, guilty of gross negligence in failing to halt the steady decline over the past 10 years.

Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, and even Bury have all succeeded in protecting and developing their inner centres even in the face of huge competition from the Trafford Centre, Liverpool One, Middlebrook and others, while Bolton has clearly failed.

Regrettably, should M&S decide to abandon it, the town's centre will be doomed.

Tony Hutchinson

Bolton