By Karen Stephen THE words "24-hour- city" give a place a glamorous, urban image - sexy even. Now a new book, The 24 Hour Society, hails Bolton as the future of just that - a 24-hour city. Author Leon Kreitzman (pictured right) writes: "...five miles outside Bolton, off Junction 6 of the M61, is the future..." He is, in fact, talking about Middlebrook - home to Bolton Wanderers, Warner Village Cinema, a host of shops, supermarkets, restaurants and leisure facilities . . . and 140,000 visitors a week.

Phrases like time-squeeze, time-trap, time-pressure all prove that, as we approach the next century, we are having great difficulties in our relationships with time.

And Kreitzman, who has been described as a "social forecaster and 24-hour enthusiast", reckons that Bolton has got it right.

According to him, the town has "brazenly" declared itself a 24-hour city, focusing on Middlebrook where, he says, the main action is taking place.

He praises the insight of its founder, Stan Annison, managing director of the Emerson Group property company.

In the book, Annison, who has been in the property game since 1962, is described as having "all the smooth patina of a businessman who's made it big . . . but the street-wise 16-year-old is still there under the gold watch".

Bolton, according to Kreitzman, is the crux of the round-the-clock society - a town that never sleeps - and one where its inhabitants can shop, eat, party, drink, watch movies and work all day . . . and night.

As 1920s New York Mayor Jimmy Walker once said: "It is a sin to go to bed the same day you get up."

And Kreitzman points out that, as car ownership grows and people become even more mobile, they are refusing to live their lives in neatly separate packages - work, go home, recreation, then back home when everything closes at 11pm. Bolton's town centre manager Karen Wheeldon agrees: "Bolton is being extremely proactive when it comes to breaking down the barriers of time in the town centre.

"What we want to do is to create a cafe society where there is no mass exodus from the town at 6pm until, say, 8-ish.

"We want people to be able to shop, eat and be entertained whenever they want.

"And with more and more people living in town and city centres, the futures of these town centres are changing and Bolton is certainly going to change with the times."

People today live "joined-up" lives so the old demarcations are broken down.

Karen added: "We want things to be available NOW, and if that now means having a meal in a restaurant at midnight after watching a film then so be it.

"These days people don't want to go out just to see a film. They want to see a film, have a meal, do some shopping and pop into the bank at the same time." In other words we want to join up everything we do - no more compartments where we have to race around at set times to fill them, ie: do all the shopping before 6pm, get to the bank before Friday afternoon - we want to do what we want, WHEN we want and, more importantly, when it suits us.

Perhaps Middlebrook isn't strictly a 24-hour-society, more a 15 or 16 hour one.

Its 12-screen Warner cinema opens till late and has already experimented with round-the-clock opening (it has a 24-hour licence).

The bowling alley closes its doors at midnight, as does Pizza Hut and the supermarkets stay open until late evening.

A true 24-hour society means much more than shops opening late.

It means changing our working patterns and lifestyles and redesigning our towns and cities.

And Bolton is certainly pointing the way for things to come.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.