A REVOLUTIONARY plan for volunteers to give "rapid response" first aid in outlying areas of Bolton, before an ambulance arrives, sounds interesting.

But it needs to be treated very much as a pioneering experiment, with thorough monitoring.

The idea is that trained volunteers will turn out in their own cars, in their own neighbourhood, to do the kind of initial life saving procedures that St John Ambulance has been teaching for years.

On a lesser scale, that kind of scenario regularly occurs. Our reports often carry lines such as "If it had not been for a passing first aider, the accident victim would have died..."

Several times in recent years, trained first aiders at the BEN have given emergency treatment to people before an ambulance crew has arrived to take over.

Generally speaking, the more people there are trained in rudimentary life saving techniques, the better.

But a wider ranging scheme where volunteers become, in effect, a fourth emergency service will need careful evaluation.

Ambulance crews often face a nightmare task in getting through today's traffic to reach an accident victim. Will the knowledge that a volunteer first aider is already at the scene lessen the urgency to reach the location?

And in the longer term, could it become a reason to further centralise the ambulance service?

GM Ambulance service assures us that the volunteers would be highly trained.

That may be so. But members of the public would far rather have a skilled paramedic -- from a station in their own neighbourhood -- bending over them than even the most superbly trained volunteer.

Two sides of green scene BOLTON Council's decision to have a green champion pushing environmental issues to the top of the agenda in every department is to be applauded.

It just seems a pity that the ideal is so obviously contradicted in this borough by the sight of two incinerators with huge appetites for burning many of the materials which could be recycled, and the imminent loss of part of the council owned St John's Wood at Lostock for a club extension.

It will be very hard for the council to really convince hundreds of people in Lostock and Chew Moor that it is seriously protecting the environment.