A FEW days ago I noticed BEN reported that someone said, with reference to our application to become a city, that our greatest asset was the people of Bolton.

At the risk of offending the numerous honest and decent citizens, I think the speaker is in a fool's paradise.

The front page of the same issue told of juvenile yobs making life a misery for elderly residents, a common occurrence in several parts of Bolton, and on Thursday's paper 25/10/01, though no more than par for the course, had the headline "Motor arson attacks soar", (by 300 % in Bolton), then page two - Good Samaritan kicked and punched by three men then hit him with a lump hammer, sex attacks man jailed at Bolton Crown Court, police hunt car thugs who attacked an 85-year old woman, driver of stolen car injured after losing control, car set alight at a Crompton Way car sales firm, and on other pages, neighbours see fighting on doorstep, cemetery trashed by vandals, with broken glass, graffiti and burnt tyres.

In another edition, one of the main stories, 'Appalling Carnage on Town's Roads' attracts the police comment: "Many casualties could have been less serious or avoided completely if motorists had... more thought and consideration for other road users.

And it's hard to find anyone who has not had their car stolen or at least broken into during the last three or four years.

Add to that the way many people use the town centre as a vast open-air litter bin, and I suggest something needs to be done to turn Bolton back into a pleasant town to live in and be proud of, before we get ideas above our station and expect to be a city.

Peter O'Loughlin

Fern Clough

Hillside

Chorley New Road

Bolton