A £1 million-plus project will help secure Bolton's world-leading position at the heart of a new textiles revolution.

Cash from various Government sources will create an Advanced Materials Centre at Bolton Institute.

It will include laboratories for developing technical textiles -- used in sectors such as the automobile and aviation industries, civil engineering and medical support -- and for environmental and bio-science research.

Importantly, there will be an incubator unit for between 12 and 15 fledgling modern textile companies which will be able to develop with the Institute's support team close to hand.

The North West Textiles Network -- an organisation supported by the North West Development Agency -- will also be based in the centre to be created next year on the Eagle campus in College Way.

Prof Richard Horrocks, the Institute's Director of Research, is a world authority on the modern materials industry which is estimated to employ about 10,000 of the 50,000 people currently working in textiles throughout the North-west.

He expects the total to rise over the years but knows it will never reach the hundreds of thousands employed in traditional textiles in times past.

Prof Horrocks knows that the textile industry is far from dead in the North-west and gets angry when television programmes and newspapers use 1920s millworkers' images to illustrate stories about the latest mill closure.

"Textiles are dead, long live technical textiles," he says.

The numbers of textile students at Bolton Institute have slumped over the years and the emphasis has now switched firmly to research and providing services to businesses operating in this field.

Training programmes on offer include a foundation degree in textiles which can be delivered to the workplace.

Many of the machines in the existing Textile Centre have now been sold because they are no longer relevant to the industry.

But Prof Horrocks hopes young people will be attracted in future as word spreads about the importance of technical or "performance" textiles which have a wide range of industrial applications.

"Bolton has invented an industry," he said.

At the moment the Advanced Materials Centre does not have a proper name.

Prof Horrocks hopes that it will eventually be endowed by a benevolent company impressed by the Institute's considerable endeavours in this field. . . . and a fabric study cash boost BOLTON Institute and the University of Surrey have received £400,000 funding by the European Flame Retardants Association to conduct research.

The programme is entitled Flame Retardant Loss From Textiles.

The news follows toxicological concerns expressed in a recent US National Academy of Science Sub-committee report about certain flame retardants present on furnishing fabrics.

Prof Horrocks, who sits on the committee, said: "Companies within the European Flame Retardants Association are obliged to assess whether their products are safe in consumer environments.

"The first stage of this is to determine whether these chemicals or derivatives are released during use of the treated textile."

The project is fully funded by EFRA and will be led by Dr G Stevens at the University of Surrey.

All the textile-related work will be undertaken at Bolton under Prof Horrocks' direction.