THE Royal Bolton Hospital has today been chosen as one of the region's three maternity super centres.

Maternity wards at Fairfield Hospital, Bury, and Salford will now close as a result.

Hospital bosses learned that the hospital had succeeded in its battle to keep baby and children's services in Bolton at a meeting of the joint committee of primary care trusts.

Originally health bosses had hoped to announce the decision in September.

But a public consultation exercise in April called "Making it Better" inspired 51,000 responses - the largest ever for a NHS public consultation - including 5,000 coupons from The Bolton News' Back the Baby Unit Campaign, prompted the delay.