UPDATE: A HUGE cannabis factory has been discovered inside a former old folk's home.

More than 2,000 cannabis plants worth about £500,000 were found when police swooped on the large detached house in Bradford Street, The Haulgh.

Cannabis plants were growing in each of the house's 16 rooms.

A team of uniformed police, together with officers from Bolton's drugs unit, raided the three-storey former care home at 11.30am yesterday, having acted on information from the local community.

Inside, they found the largest and most advanced drugs farm discovered in Bolton in recent years.

Rows of plants, at various stages of growth, were crammed in every room, cultivated by a highly sophisticated heating, ventilation and lighting system.

Tubes had been fed to each room of the house carrying plant food from huge chemical vats.

Windows were covered in a bid to hide the building's use from local residents.

Police quickly went through the building, cutting the plants from their pots and bagging them up.

Forensic experts examined the equipment for fingerprints and DNA.

The discovery brings the number of cannabis farms discovered in Bolton by police to 33 since April.

Det Chief Insp George Fawcett, of Bolton CID, said: "This is a significant find and the most advanced and complex cannabis factory that we have come across during this operation, which is a continuation of Greater Manchester Police's Operation Dragonfly.

"We are continuing to raid premises throughout Bolton to dismantle these organised crime gangs.

"We would like to thank the community for the information they have supplied and ask them to continue sharing intelligence to help us close these drugs dens down."

No-one was inside the building at the time of the raid.

On Thursday, hundreds of cannabis plants were found at two farms set up at two addresses in Breightmet and Horwich.

Anyone with any information about the cannabis farm should contact the Bolton Drugs Unit on 0161 856 5796, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.