A PUB landlord has predicted that Bolton will become one of the top towns in the North-west for a night out with two huge new drinking holes planned.

Landlord John Jewitt of the Man and Scythe believes that the centre of Bolton will attract large number of people.

But it could be at the expense of pubs on the edge of the town.

His comments came after it was announced that Bass Leisure have bought the landmark store Whiteheads, which is to shut in the New Year.

And Joseph Holts brewery is to massively expand The Millstone pub on nearby Crown Street.

Mr Jewitt, the only independent landlord in the town centre, said: "This development will change the whole aspect of the town centre.

"It will mean that the whole focus of the town centre entertainment will shift onto that end of town. "It is good news for me personally because the Man and Scythe on Churchgate will be more or less in the middle of the new "centre".

"Trading was tough last year but this year has not been too bad. Last year we had the beer wars which meant that some pubs were offering beer at ridiculously low prices."

He added: "There are a lot of businesses and a lot of competition. The people who are getting squeezed out are the people on the edge of the town centre."

But he also said that around 50 years ago there had been far more pubs in the Churchgate area and the two new pubs would only be taking things back to the historical balance of the town.

And MP for Bolton South-east, Dr Brian Iddon, agreed that there was a high level of competition among pubs in the town centre.

He said: "We can only sustain so many drinking hostelries. Whether we've reached saturation it or not yet, I don't know. I suppose only time will tell when we see some of these places either surviving or failing."

He added that CCTV in the town centre means that even with more revellers on the streets, it is now safer than in the past.

A night out in Bolton town centre was described as "like visiting a Wild West frontier post" in a TV documentary in the late 1980s.

But the Bolton pub trade has been involved in a range of initiatives designed to rid the town of its negative image including in 1989 a Pub Watch scheme and the setting up of the Town Centre Licensees' Alliance.

There are around 30 pubs in the town centre according to licensing authority at Bolton Magistrates Court. Most are concentrated on Bradshawgate with 12 pubs and four restaurants concentrated in just a few hundred yards.

In Bolton as a whole there are between 350 and 400 pubs.

In the past two years, there has been a mini-explosion of new pubs including The Varsity in Churchgate and Red on The Square in Nelson Square together with the redevelopment of others such as The Swan in Bradshawgate.

As reported in the BEN yesterday, Bass Leisure is buying Whiteheads in a £2million deal.

And Holts Brewery is planning to expand the Millstone pub so that it spreads to a former Italian restaurant in Bank Street.

There are even plans for 24-hour opening, which has been welcomed by some politicians including Bolton North-east MP David Crausby.

But the new pubs have not been welcomed by everyone.

Cllr Stuart Lever, a Tory councillor and also a businessman, predicted the death of Bolton as a retail centre -- taken over instead by pubs, restaurants and office blocks.

He said: "Whiteheads closing is the beginning of the end. I predict that within 20 years the town centre of Bolton as we know it will disappear.

"We are heading the way of American cities and town whereby the all the shops are in shopping malls and the centres are just full of offices."

But leader of Bolton Council, Cllr Bob Howarth insisted that the demise of Whiteheads and the resurgence of pubs was simply a reflection of the changing High Street.

He said: "It is very sad that Whiteheads is to go. It's bad new for them but things move on.

"The town centre is very lively and things are moving fast at the moment.

"Young people have more disposable income. The big operators respond to that, a local town centre is part of that change."