A BOLTON woman who quit the town after her two-year-old son drowned in a mill lodge has joined the BEN campaign to get them filled in.

Breightmet resident Sue Johnson, first called for disused lodges to be filled in back in 1977 following the death of her two-and-a-half year old son Richard in Red Bridge Lodge.

Mrs Johnson, who was 25 at the time, had left the toddler at the former family home on Red Lane for just five minutes to nip to the shops.

But the toddler managed to get out of the house and made his way to the abandoned lodge less than 100 yards away.

After a police search Richard's body was found in the lodge - he was taken to the then Bolton Royal Infirmary but all attempts to resuscitate him failed.

Mrs Johnson was so affected by her son's death, which she blamed for the break-up of her marriage, that she left the town to start a new life in London.

In April, after 23 years in exile, she returned to Bolton to try and begin again - but says recent events, particularly the tragic death of eight-year-old Jaffer Javid in Blackshaw Lodge - has brought it all back to her again.

She says she is now considering quitting the town again because the memories are just too painful and adds that she is outraged that the lodge which claimed her son's life has still not been filled in.

"These lodges should have been filled in years ago," she told the BEN. "I'm disgusted that they are still open and I wholeheartedly support your campaign to fill them in.

"I left the town because I just couldn't stand it knowing it was still open but to return after all these years and find it is still there is just adding insult to injury."

At the time the BEN reported that the lodge was once owned by JRT Estates but they denied responsibility saying it had been bought by the council.

The council, in turn, also denied they had ownership over the land.

But whoever the owner, Mrs Johnson believes enough is enough.

"Children are attracted to water, you can't fill in every piece of open water in the land but these places are often secluded and children like nothing more than making a secret den," she said. "They were used in the mill industry but those days are long gone, the mills have been put to other uses so it is long overdue that these deathtraps should go."

She added: "Landowners have a responsibility and it is frustrating that there are no laws that can force them to make lodges safe. Other areas such as railway embankment have to be safe by law so why can't these?" THE Bolton Evening News is calling for the disused and rubbish strewn former mill lodges across the town to be filled in.

It is these, not the improved and nurtured lodges and canals which have become a haven for visitors, at which our campaign is aimed.

We would like to see them filled in, as quickly as possible. Levelled and perhaps enhanced to improve areas, not blight them.

Most of all, we want to rid the town of these unsuspecting water traps where children often play but which pose a constant, hidden threat.