THIRTEEN years ago you would most likely have received incredulous looks if you had suggested that within a decade Bolton would be staging an annual food and drink festival to rival any other in the UK.

Now, of course, Bolton Food and Drink festival has – pardon the pun – mushroomed into an event that attracts thousands of visitors from across the country every year.

In 2017, over the course of the four-day culinary celebration, a record-breaking 267,000 people visited, which is incredible.

It kicks off today and runs until Bank Holiday Monday. The town centre will be packed with stalls selling a wide variety of food and drink. As ever, famous chefs will line up each day.

This year is the tenth that celebrity chef and event favourite James Martin has appeared.

The former host of Saturday Kitchen has been a vocal supporter since its early days and has himself described the festival as one of the best of its kind in the country.

Over the past decade or so, Bolton Council has been criticised – sometimes fairly and sometimes not – for what many believe is a lack of action to address the decline of the town centre.

Some of these critics I call the ‘bloody council’ commentators. Their default position is that absolutely everything the local authority does is rubbish. (Hence the cries of: “It’s the bloody council’s fault”).

They lay the blame for virtually everything they aren’t happy with at the door of the council.

So, shops shutting in the town centre is entirely the fault of the “bloody council”.

The sticky discomfort of the recent heatwave – that’s the “bloody council” too. Okay, perhaps they don’t blame the council for that – even the most vocal critics must recognise that the soaring temperatures were caused by a ridge of high pressure.

In all seriousness and for the sake of clarity, I agree that some decisions made by councillors in the past few years have done little to help stop the decline of the town centre. In fact, I’m sure they have actively deterred shoppers from visiting.

For example, no one could seriously suggest that the growth of the Middlebrook retail park and the closure of the Market Hall have had a positive impact on the town centre.

Of course they haven’t. They have caused people to stay away.

But none of that alters the fact that the food and drink festival is a brilliant event.

People come from all over the country to try the food, have a drink, attend a cookery demo, or just simply have a mooch and enjoy the music and the general atmosphere, which is always special - in particular if the weather stays dry.

So let’s give credit where it’s due and applaud the organisers, the sponsors and all those who put in a lot of hard work behind the scenes to make the festival the top event that it has become.

Also, if you have yet to experience one, why not come into the town centre this weekend?

If you’re one of those moaners who won’t make the effort to visit such a great event, I’m afraid you’re part of the problem, not the solution.