A “REGENERATION specialist” which has stalled on town centre development plans for seven years is said to be back in talks with town hall chiefs.

St Modwen promised to revitalise Farnworth town centre after purchasing its former market precinct in 2011, but has since ditched two development plans for the site.

But the “expert developer” is said to have been drawn back to the table due to Bolton Council nominating Farnworth for Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham’s Town Centre Challenge.

Residents are currently being consulted on their vision for the future of the town.

And Philp Green, the council’s assistant director of place, told a corporate and external scrutiny committee that developer’s interest appeared to have been revived by the initiative.

He said: “What that’s done is prompt St Modwen to come back and have a more constructive discussion with us than ever before, it allows us to talk to them really seriously , I think we are going to see some real progress with them now.”

Mr Green told the committee that the “key aspirations” included improving the environment and creating better quality housing for all age groups to “create a real sense of pride around one of our key district centres.”

He added: “It’s fantastic to see a district town centre responding in the way it has and the plans put in place mean that potentially, as well as feeding back to Greater Manchester, it is a model we can now roll out to other town centres in Bolton.

Farnworth councillor Maureen Flitcroft gave a cautious welcome to Mr Green’s comments.

She said: “I do feel that people have lost faith in them because they have stalled for so long.

“If they are 100 per cent behind it and fully committed, it’s good news, but you don’t want anything half-hearted.”

But while things may be looking back for one of the borough’s more deprived areas, there have been calls not to forget other struggling areas.

At the same meeting, the council’s interim director Gerry Brough indicated that, with the Bolton town centre master beginning to take shape, the council would soon be looking at improving town’ around the borough.

Responding to a question from Cllr Sue Haworth, he said: “I think this is something we’ve been aware of for some time, we need to address the wider borough, not just the centre of Bolton. Now we have a handle on the town centre we will be looking very seriously into looking at other town centres across the borough and coming up with very similar development plans.”

Cllr Guy Harkin said it was important that funds were targeted in the right parts of the borough.

He said: “Westhoughton has begun to get involved in regeneration that would have happened 10 or 15 years ago if not been for the recession.

“We are noticing in Westhoughton, without any major thrust from the council a self-evident regeneration, one that Horwich was involved in earlier than that.”

The Crompton ward councillor, who lived in Westhoughton until recently, added: “There are other parts of the borough that are really struggling.

“ I hope we are not going to be throwing money at the town’s that are self-regenerating to a degree as opposed to the ones that are really struggling and require a lot of active involvement from us and our partner agencies, to actually get things going again.”