10 incredible facts we learned about Bolton thanks to the Freedom of Information Act

Here are ten things The Bolton News has discovered thanks to this handy little tool.

1. About £150,000 of taxpayers’ money is spent each year on calling out firefighters when there is no fire.

A request to Greater Manchester Fire Service showed in 2013 that Bolton-based fire officers were called out 260 times in just 12 months when automatic fire alarms sounded.

Each call out costs £400 on staff wages, fuel and apparatus maintenance.

2. Bolton Crown Court could be a dangerous place to be if security guards weren't so vigilant.

In 2012, we asked Her Majesty’s Court Service for a list of incidents in which security staff had caught people trying to sneak weapons into courts.

In just one month, they confiscated four knives at Bolton Crown Court and the gun was seized at another – unnamed court.

3. An asylum seeker rang police to say she was fed up of living in Bolton – and asked to be taken back to war torn Afghanistan.

We asked Greater Manchester Police for a list of 999 calls made from licensed premises in Bolton in a single month in 2013 – and the call in question came from a hotel with a bar.

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4. Posties are scared of visiting some Bolton houses because they keep getting bitten by dogs.

Figures from the Royal Mail showed 19 postal workers had to have a total of 39 days off sick in 2010 because they had been bitten by Dogs in Bolton.

5. Relatives of a dead person went to Royal Bolton Hospital to see them – and were shown the wrong body.

The Human Tissues Authority revealed the incident took place in December 2011.

Bolton NHS Foundation Trust said it reviewed its policies afterwards to ensure there would be no repeat and staff kept the family in question up-to-date on its actions.

6. Bolton residents are very honest when they find money.

We asked Greater Manchester Police for a list of items handed in at Bolton Police stations in 2012 and it turned out that more than £3,000 in cash people had found on the street was given to police. The largest amount was £303.

Amusing "items" handed in included swords, two lollipops and a brown border terrier dog.

7. Police officers are attacked once every two days in Bolton.

A request for information about assaults on police officers show one is injured every 56 hours in Bolton.

In 2012, one was attacked with a kitchen knife and another was bit on the arm.

However, some of the injuries are not down to yobs. One officer was stung by a wasp and another accidently headbutted a colleague during a training exercise.

8. Bolton Council could build six new primary schools if everyone paid their tax.

We asked the council how much council tax is outstanding and the figure, as of September, was £10.6 million.

Town hall bosses have a range of measures in place in a bid to get those responsible to pay up.

9. Two people who once didn't pay their council tax were serving councillors at the time.

A long-running Bolton News investigation uncovered that two politicians were so late in paying their council tax that they were banned from voting on what the following year’s council tax should be.

One of them was Conservative Cllr Mudasir Dean, but the other one – a Labour politician – remains unknown.

A top judge is set to rule later this year if their identity should be made public.

10. Flytippers beware – Bolton Council bosses have some clever ways of catching you in the act.

In 2012, we discovered the council had installed a CCTV camera on an island in a duck pond to snare flytippers – and it worked, as two were caught.

Dog walkers had reported people dumping food, including chicken carcasses, in Queens Park.

Read the full stories here:

• CCTV set up in park to catch fly-tippers
• False alarms cost fire service in Bolton £170,000 per year
• NAMED: Councillor comes clean over failure to pay council tax on time
• Weapon seizures at courts revealed
• Post ban put on dog bite house

• Bolton top of list for street attacks on police officers