BIG Brother comes in many forms now that the idea has been hi-jacked by reality TV, but the original meaning concerned a major power taking over everyone's lives.

George Orwell had in mind a totalitarian state in his novel 1984 but, much closer to home, the battle of Bolton v Primark was a reminder of how the power-brokers may try to control too much.

There has been a long and fruitful relationship between the town and the famous cut-price clothing store.

It currently has a busy store in Bradshawgate, reachable from inside Crompton Place shopping centre, and wants to expand. It is good news - on the surface.

The problem is that it wants to double the size of its store by going into two large vacant units, one of which is on the other side of the centre's Bradshawgate entrance. So Primark wants to close the entrance.

Bolton councillors are quite rightly concerned about what this will mean, both to the town centre and to shoppers. It would leave Crompton Place with just two main entrances, in Hotel Street and Exchange Street, and involve a trek round to either to get into the shopping centre.

It would also further isolate Bradshawgate from central footfall and from Victoria Square, Newport Street and the current access to central shops.

Primark is threatening to pull out of the town centre if the council refuses to agree to the plan. This sounds like a hammer to crack a nut, though, because there are alternatives available.

The Next store at Middlebrook, for example, got over this problem nicely by having two stores divided by the entrance to the cinema complex, creating separate adult and children's clothes' shopping areas.

Primark's bully-boy tactics must not be allowed to work. Apart from inconveniencing the public, the town centre is going through a time of major change with redevelopment of the Market Hall to host several more High Street names, and with more changes planned.

Showing that money can dictate what happens to the town in this way now would simply encourage further outrageous demands by big stores simply because they felt they could.

Bolton's councillors are taking the right stance by resisting this Big Brother approach to central town planning, and doing exactly what the electorate wants: protecting the public's interests.