HERE we go again! Your front page article, "Town is magnet for the wealthy", July 10, is yet again promoting snobbery, as did the silly idea of changing Bolton into Bolton Le Moors.

To promote a town in this way is not doing the majority of us any favours.

By attracting outsiders, they are forcing high house prices even higher, thus pushing young locals off the housing ladder.

Worse still, this will encourage more unwanted development in the form of tightly-packed "Lego cities", again not doing anyone any favours as, surprise surprise, they will be selling at daft prices. Surely it is common sense in thinking that, if hordes of outsiders make to a certain town, it will no longer be desirable when the fields are gone and the roads plus motorways are gridlocked.

There has, on the news, been proposals for rewarding car sharers. Perhaps it could be done with houses. All this mess has resulted from too many children being born who are now these wealthy people hell bent on invading our town, and Westhoughton has been bearing the brunt of it for too long.

If I go back to my childhood, our house was one of four in a quiet cul-de-sac. We had fields up to the Snydle water tower with cows grazing. How tranquil were those halcyon days! Now that is what I call being wealthy!

B Howarth

Alexandria Drive

Westhoughton