THIS year's Bolton Food and Drink Festival was officially the biggest and best ever — giving town centre businesses a bumper payout.

The tenth festival delivered a welcome boost to the town's economy as tens of thousands of visitors from far and wide travelled to Bolton to grab a slice of the foodie action.

Council chiefs, traders, hotels and shopping centre bosses have all hailed this year's anniversary event for boosting trade in the town centre.

Paula Wood, Crompton Place shopping centre manager, said: "It's been a marvellous few days of trading for Bolton.

"The weather has been warm and dry throughout the Bank Holiday weekend and the food festival activities have created a great atmosphere and brought lots of people into the town centre, providing an excellent boost for the local economy."

Alex Weatherall, food and beverage manager at the Holiday Inn in Higher Bridge Street, said the event brought in a bumper trade for the hotel.

He said: "It is great for us, it brings in a lot of people into the town and obviously increases the amount of people who are going to need somewhere to stay. I think it is a good thing for the area in general, as it supports businesses with more people out and about the place."

Town centre shops also benefited from the influx of visitors to the area. Andrew Scarlett, head chef at recently opened Crawshaws butchers in Newport Street, said: “We have had a lot of people who came in who originally didn’t know about us, but now they might come back and shop here in the future.”

Popular town centre bar Harveys also saw the benefit, with bosses seeing an increase in profits of about a third in comparison to a normal weekend.

Lewis Murphy, bar manager, said: “We have had more people coming in here than ever before, in comparison to previous events."

Celebrity chefs James Martin, John Torode, Lisa Faulkner and Michael Caines were among the star attractions, as was a 5ft 7in, 250kg elephant cake, which was made by expert baker Rose Dummer celebrate the anniversary.

The cake was cut by James on Monday and was served up to visitors with some also being set aside for Urban Outreach.

Cllr Cliff Morris, leader of Bolton Council, said: "Rose did a fantastic job and it was a fitting tribute to our 10th birthday celebrations. Overall, the event has been a huge success.

"We’ve had great feedback not only from traders but also some of the local businesses, who said that the festival has brought people into the town centre.

“People have been coming to the festival and using the shops as well. The event is bigger and better, more people have been coming. We’re just finalising figures but we look to be on track for breaking last year’s record."

This year's visitor numbers are expected to comfortably smash last year's total of 153,227.

The council had set a target of reaching 140,000 visitors by this year, but managed to achieve that ahead of time.

Even the grey clouds and a spot of rain on the final day of the festival did not put off foodie fans, who flocked into the town centre for the last time this year.

Keith Davies, director of development and regeneration at Bolton Council, added: “It is looking very promising, we have got to collate all of the figures and do our checks.

“Everyone who I have spoken to has been very positive about the festival.”

Were you out enjoying the food and drink festival over the bank holiday weekend? Send your photographs to pictures@theboltonnews.co.uk