INFLUENTIAL developers are queuing up for the chance to become partners in a planned multi-million pound 'retail and religion' complex.

Up to 18 property developers - many of them big name firms who have links with large retail schemes in the region - have expressed an interest in the proposed revamp of Bolton's Victoria Hall.

The news is a welcome boost for the hard-hit town centre, coming just days after bosses at Bolton's last family department store Whiteheads announced it was to close after 141 years in business.

But council chiefs and Bolton Methodist Mission representatives insist the planned £100 million Victoria Gardens project will create fresh trade for the town centre.

The partners are confident that the 18 expressions of interest from developers , received after adverts appeared in property journals, are a good forecast for future success.

A short-list of potential developers will now be created amid hopes that an appointment can be made in January 2001, with completion of the scheme provisionally forecast for Autumn 2004.

Rev Phil Mason, the Mission's superintendent minister, said: "This latest news is very exciting. There are some large development players in there to help bring a quality scheme into the town centre which is such a requirement at this time."

The proposals were saved when council bosses and Mission representatives worked on a rescue package after a developer initially involved in the scheme went into administrative receivership.

The shopping complex, which would have the 100-year-old Knowsley Street hall at its centre, would include a major department store and 300 seater theatre in the hall's basement.

Council leader Cllr Bob Howarth spoke of his hopes for the scheme's success, coming on the back of the recent Whiteheads' heartbreak.

He added: "I'm as sad as anybody about the news about Whiteheads but against that there's this major development coming forward over the next few years which will create such confidence in retailing in the town centre."