The day Bolton became part of Greater Manchester 50 years ago

As a county, Greater Manchester was established on April 1, 1974, following the Local Government Act 1972.

The change saw Bolton go from being an independent ‘county borough’, to part of a city-region encompassing 493 square miles (1,276 square kilometres), stretching from Horwich to Marple – with police, fire services, and transport all brought under one roof.

Parts of Lancashire joined the town in its newly formed borough, with residents of Farnworth, Horwich, Little Lever, and Westhoughton all waking up as Boltonians.

Not everyone has been happy about the change, with some calling for the borough to instead join the county of Lancashire, matching its historic county.

One of those who thinks Bolton would be better off out of the city-region is Astley Bridge’s Cllr John Walsh.

However, Cllr Walsh believes trying to make a change now would be too costly.

He said: “We’ve never left Lancashire, let’s be clear. We are part of the County Palatine of Lancaster, and that remains confirmed again by Government, that the historic county boundaries exist geographically and physically.

“We are still in Lancashire, we are part of the administrative area of Greater Manchester, and that has had its faults.

“I think to try to unscramble it, as it were, and return Bolton to Lancashire at the present time would be a costly exercise when finances are very tight, and it is therefore inappropriate at the present time to consider Bolton returning to the administrative area of Lancashire without huge costs and distracting from key services.”

Cllr John Walsh reading the Lancashire proclamation in Victoria Square, Bolton for Lancashire day in 2010. Photo: Gus Sivyer, Newsquest

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Cllr Walsh pointed to issues with transport and highways, calling the scrapped Blackburn bypass the ‘biggest single failing to Bolton’ in the authority’s 50-year existence.  

He added: “I think Bolton, because we’re on the periphery, has not done as well as other authorities and as we reasonably ought to have expected to do.

“Now we have the combined authority, that the government has given devolved powers to, with Bolton having a voice on it through the leader of the council.

“We need to make sure that the next 50 years produces more good to Bolton than has been achieved in the first 50 years.”

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Council leader Nick Peel takes a different view to Cllr Walsh.

Sitting on the combined authority as the portfolio lead for the ‘Digital City-Region’, Cllr Peel said he believes Bolton has ‘more in common’ with its neighbours to the south than its neighbours to the north, like Blackburn and Chorley.

Cllr Nick Peel thinks Bolton has more in common with its neighbours to the south (Image: Henry Lisowski)

He said: “The reason we have so many devolved powers coming to Greater Manchester from Westminster is we can demonstrate a mature and collaborative approach towards issues that affect us all.

“It is a fact that outside of London, Greater Manchester is the most devolved region in England. Governments of all colours recognise that we have been able to demonstrate the ability to work together on those key issues.

“In terms of Bolton’s place, we are still in the historic County Palatine of Lancaster, and the fact that we work in a collaborative manner with our GM neighbours does not alter the fact that we are Lancastrians, and the debate on this gets sidelined into issues of identity, rather than issues of the most efficient system for Bolton to operate in.

“It’s a nonsense argument, because we’re not Greater Mancunians, we are Lancastrians, and so there’s no issue with identity, it’s just that we work in partnership with our close neighbours whom we have more in common.

“To the south of Bolton, the travel to work area of Boltonians, the economic hub of Manchester, GM Police, Fire, we have more in common with all those neighbours to our safe than we do to our neighbours to the north, like Blackburn and Chorley.

“That’s why being part of Greater Manchester makes absolute sense economically. Bolton doesn’t compete with Manchester, we’re very much working with Manchester as a very, very fast growing city-region, so that Bolton can reap benefits of that, whether that be better transport links or access to new jobs, it’s all for the benefit of Bolton people.

“That just simply doesn’t exist to the north of the borough.”

Cllr Peel emphasized that nobody was expecting people to identify as ‘Greater Mancunians’.

He said: “This argument isn’t about identity, because the fact is we are Lancastrians, so there is no argument there – nobody’s arguing we are Greater Mancunians, nobody’s ever said that.”

However, when pressed, Cllr Peel admitted that the younger generation may be starting to identify more with Greater Manchester than Lancaster.

He added: “I think it’s growing, I think that is most certainly growing. There’s definitely a division in opinion on this between the younger and older generations, as there was with remaining in Europe.”

Cllr Peel added that he expected further powers to be devolved from Westminster to Greater Manchester with a change of government expected within the next year.

The council leader said: “We’re not talking about giving up powers from Bolton to Greater Manchester, that’s not the issue at all – we retain our highways, we retain our social services, we retain our environmental services, etc.

“Greater Manchester deals with those strategic issues: transport, policing, economy, skills, jobs, growth. Those things are best placed at a regional level, not a national level or a borough level, they’re best dealt with at a regional level for all the benefits.

“I would hope to see in the next 50 years more powers from Westminster coming to our region and no powers from Bolton going to the region, that’s the development we all want to see: proper devolution.”

If you have a story, I cover the whole borough of Bolton. Please get in touch at jack.fifield@newsquest.co.uk.