WHEN is an eyesore not an eyesore?

That is the question that has led to fierce controversy as the future of the former Marsden Road headquarters of the old Bolton Fire Brigade is debated.

There is a great local fondness for the unusual building, which follows the sweeping bend where Deansgate joins Marsden Road. As well as the curved facade, the building also has graceful arches where fire engines were once garaged.

But is fondness a good enough reason to preserve the frontage exactly as it was? Or should only architectural merit decide that?

One Bolton Civic Trust official has called it an eyesore, and the trust believes that unless the developer gets on with the job, the site will become even more derelict than it is at present.

The trust has rubbished suggestions by architectural experts in Buckinghamshire that the building should be renovated and kept in its present form.

The architects' sentiments are OK, but the drawback is that there is probably not a developer in the land who take a second look at the building if they were stuck with the task of keeping everything intact. And Bolton would be faced with yet another blot on one of its main approach routes.

The sensible compromise is to keep what can be preserved of the facade and build a modern, quality development behind it.

Anyone who doubts that it would work should take a look at the centre of Bury, next to Sir Robert Peel's statue, where the superb frontage of Castle Buildings was preserved, while a modern pub and offices were created behind it. More weight to our move WE have said repeatedly that Bolton's cabinet-style committees, where small bands of councillors take decisions behind closed doors, have no place in a democracy.

But at least the public anger when the system was introduced was subdued by the assurance that four scrutiny committees would be there to monitor what was going on. The public could be there, we were told, and opposition and backbench councillors could challenge decisions.

Today's claims that even the scrutiny committees are "a farce" adds further weight to our call for the cabinets to allow press and public into their meetings.