From the Evening News, 1993: ASTONISHING allegations that the local authority got its sums two million pounds out over a building estimate have emerged in the battle to save Bolton Sports Centre.

Bolton Council gave a totally wrong picture of what it would take to re-build the centre, say critics of the plan to save cash by selling the site and shifting sports facilities to Bolton Metropolitan College.

As recently as the end of last year, protesters were being told that re-building the centre would cost more than £3 million. But campaigners called in a firm known for building sports centres - and were given an estimate of less than £500,000.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

February 1, 1978

FOUR recreation areas around Bolton are featured in a new plan published today. The West Pennine Moors Local Plan has been drawn up to serve about 2,500,000 people after consultations with farmers and residents. The areas , called recreational management zones, are Rivington, Darwen Tower-Roddlesworth, Jumbles-Wayoh-Entwistle, Haslingden Grane-Pickup Bank. There will be four full-time rangers, and a pool of 50 to 60 part-time rangers to cover them.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

February 1, 1953

ONE column from which the advertising manager of any local newspaper can always be sure of a steady revenue is that giving notice of the amusements in a town.

Cinema programmes, sports meetings, and dances; all are billed here and none appears with more consistent regularity than that saviour of so many club bank deficits - the whist drive.

Night after night we read of whist drives being run in some parish hall (to help replace those hymn books which have become very tattered) or at a local cricket club (the wicketkeeper's pads really were looking a little shabby).

The whist drive seems to be a thing inseparable from the social life of the town. In the villages and outlying districts around Bolton, it is the social occasion of the week, when everyone meets everyone else and discusses, in between hands, the happenings of the last few days.

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

January 31, 1903

AN explosion of an alarming character, the loud report of which naturally caused considerable excitement to the residents of the immediate vicinity and those who were engaged on the works, occurred shortly after noon today at the Lum-st. gasworks of the Bolton Corporation.

Not only was considerable damage done to the engine house, but injuries were sustained by a workman, who, fortunately - yet unfortunately for him - was the only person near the ill-fated building at the time of the explosion. The structure of the engine house was practically wrecked, the windows being blown out, the roof shaken and slates carried several yards away, whilst the tile floor has been literally torn up.