WEEKLY bin collections are here to stay in Bolton, the leader of the council has promised.

Official government research released today said there would be no problems with fortnightly collections if rubbish was well wrapped.

But Cllr Cliff Morris, leader of Bolton Council said the borough will not be reverting back to the fortnightly system, which brought a storm of protest from householders.

He said: "The people of Bolton want a weekly bin collection, and as long as we reach our recycling targets, which we are doing, why should we not have a weekly collection?

"At this stage we are making sure we do everything right and I am certainly keeping my promise to the people. We will encourage people to recycle and fortnightly collections will not be coming back."

Fortnightly bin rounds were introduced in Bolton in 2004 to encourage recycling, but householders complained about overflowing bins and vermin.

When Labour won back control of Bolton Council from the Liberal Democrats last year, they pledged to bring back the weekly collections and that process began in August.

Conservative councillor Stuart Lever, who was against the fortnightly bin collections, said: "We never should have gone to the fortnightly collections in the first place. It made a lot of people very unhappy and Bolton is the only council to revert back from full fortnightly collections to weekly."

Liberal Democrat councillor Barbara Ronson said: "We think we were right to do fortnightly collections, but we do not expect it to go back unless there is a big demand from the public or if the government impose it on us.

"People were coping with the fortnightly collections and it would have increased recycling but the decision was taken to reverse it."