A CORONER wants improvements made to a busy Bolton town centre junction where a pensioner was knocked down and killed by a bus.

Deputy Bolton coroner Alan Walsh urged highways chiefs to seek immediate advice from the Government’s Department of Transport about the width of the pedestrian crossing at the junction of Knowsley Street and Deansgate.

The inquest into the death of Anne Knowles, aged 78, of The Fairways, Egerton, who was struck by a single-decker bus on March 14 last year, heard that the junction is nearly three times the regulation width.

Mr Walsh also recommended that the road be made into a one-way system.

Mrs Knowles was shopping when the accident happened. She was hit by a Rossendale Transport bus as she crossed between McDonald’s and what is now Nationwide, in Deansgate, at about 10.15am.

The driver, Simon Watson, did not see the pensioner until she was immediately in front of the windscreen because of a blind spot, the inquest heard.

She suffered serious head injuries when she fell to the ground and later died at the Royal Bolton Hospital.

Mr Walsh recorded a verdict of accidental death.