10 years ago from the Evening News March 30, 1995: THE ambitious project to turn the Eagley Mills complex off Hough Lane into 250 flats and duplexes is likely to come before planning chiefs in May.

The scheme will cost around £12 to £14 million and be phased over about 10 years, beginning in 1996.

It will incorporate a restaurant and bar, craft centre, tennis courts and leisure facilities as well as parking for 400 vehicles and a system of riverside walkways and bridges on the 35-acre site.

THE identities of two supermarket operators who are likely to move on to the site of the new Westhoughton shopping complex were revealed this week.

They are the little-known German firm Liddl and the frozen food chain Iceland.

25 years ago from the Evening News March 29, 1980

THE stage is set for the keenest-ever battle for control of Bolton Council.

Wards have been cut from 23 to 20 and the whole of the council is up for election on May Day.

The Tories have held on to the top dog position since local government reorganisation in 1974.

But they now have a majority of just one and although the pundits say the redrafting of boundaries slightly favours the Blues, Labour has never been more confident of wresting control.

THE television age could mean more lonely, elderly folk - that is the fear of Bolton's Age Concern.

In its annual report the charity says modern developments such as TV, new estates, cars and telephones could be weakening a traditional sense of community.

50 years ago from the Evening News March 30, 1955

THE 20-years-old son of a Bolton clergyman has won one of the plum prizes of the profession - the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art's Bancroft Gold Medal.

He is Bryan Pringle, whose father is the Rev Craster Pringle, vicar of St Bede's.

HIGHLY satisfactory trading results achieved by Bromilow and Edwards Ltd, the Bolton engineering firm which specialises in making tipping gear, were reported today in the annual statement made by the chairman, Lord Coleraine.

100 YEARS AGO From the Evening News March 30, 1905

THE Countess of Warwick, speaking at Burnley on Wednesday night in support of Mr Hyndman, the Socialist candidate,said that to teach children whose stomachs were empty was an anomaly and the food question should come before the pressing one of education.

Child labour in mills was a terrible blot on Lancashire, she said.

She appealed to parents to throw off the feeling that every child was worth so many shillings a week into the homemeant to their physical deterioration to be sent out to work with minds and bodies imperfectly formed.

ABRAHAM Southworth of Westhoughton, who caught larks by means of a decoy bird near the Red Moss, Blackrod, was fined 10 shillings, including costs, at the County Magistrates' Court today.

He said he could not read the large bills which had been posted in the area.