THE planned arrival of Bolton's first asylum seekers under new Government guidelines has been put on hold yet again.

Officals had been expecting to sign a deal with the Home Office which would see the refugees arrive in Bolton this week.

But the meeting to hammer out the final details of the dispersal programme of refugees throughout the country was cancelled at the last minute.

Another meeting has been planned for this Friday and council officials are optimistic the contract will be signed early next week.

If everything goes to plan, the first of the 200 refugees will be arriving by coach in a fortnight.

The contract between the North West Authorities and the Home Office has taken much longer than expected to draw up because of wrangling over finer details such as drop off points.

But officials are confident most of the difficulties have been ironed out and nothing will stand in the way of completion next week.

Officials do not know the details of who will be arriving but have been told to expect two or three asylum seekers on a daily basis until Bolton has taken in its quota.

Most are expected to be from Iraq, various countries in Northern Africa, former Soviet states, Alabania and Turkey.