WHAT interests me about Cllr Michael Kilcoyne's letter, in the BEN September 1, is the personal venom against me it contains. If I was doixng such a bad job why had Cllr Kilcoyne not the courage as a senior councillor to come and tell me so, face to face, while I was an MP?

But as a full-time councillor and graduate I would have expected him to at least check his facts. The constituency known as North East did not come into being till 1983.

More important, the nature and position of the new hospital was decided by Bolton's Community Health Council, after a massive public consultation. I would have thought Cllr Kilcoyne would have known that, as it would be to them he would have had to address any suggestions of a new hospital on a green field site.

My job was to convince a Tory government which hated the NHS that the Community Health Council's final decision to site the new hospital on the Bolton General Hospital site should be accepted. I succeeded without any parliamentary help though I was not the only MP in Bolton. Bolton was then Bolton East and West. Both were represented by Labour MPs, as was Farnworth.

I did not say that the medical care was anything but excellent. I did say, with far more personal knowledge over a longer period than Cllr Kilcoyne, that it was associated in the minds of the elderly with the poor law hospital on the site it stood and whose buildings were simply updated.

However, I still hope for a reply from Ms Ruth Kelly MP and would like to know how many of the present trust are entirely dependant on the NHS for their health care. That is more relevant than raking over the past.

David Young

Bramhall Avenue

Bolton