City bid is the talk of Twitter
8:54am Thursday 9th February 2012 in Your Town
BOLTON’S city status bid became the talk of social networking website Twitter — with strong views being aired on both sides.
Scores of people got involved in the online debate yesterday, which was started by an article in The Bolton News revealing bookmaker William Hill was offering odds of 18/1 that the town would succeed in becoming a city in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Year.
People aired their views on the bid, using the hashtag #boltoncitystatusbid, and the story was seen by thousands of people.
Harun Mohamed tweeted: “I would love to be known as a city but I’d rather have Bolton known as the biggest town in Europe,”
while Rebecca Nicholl asked: “Why not concentrate (and spend the money) on making Bolton a brilliant town rather than striving to be an average city?”
However, Sian Leehane was in favour of the idea, tweeting: “Bolton’s history is great, many amazing things to discover and loads of fantastic people.”
Martin Clarke asked: “The people that are extolling the virtues of Bolton as it is are the ones wanting it to become something else.
Why?”
The Octagon, Bolton Market and Middlebrook were all highlighted as things the town could be proud of.
It is expected the announcement of the winning town will be made in June, around the time of the Jubilee celebrations.
Reading is favourite to be named a city at 10 to 11.
Bolton’s nearest North West rival, Stockport, is currently at 25 to one.
