WE fervently hope that the local delegation in London today to argue for Bolton to retain its assisted area status is successful.

This status has helped to generate more than £50 million worth of private investment in local employment over the last three years. But, this situation is currently threatened as the Government re-draws the boundaries of these assisted areas around the country.

The town is very much the victim of its own success. But recent hammer blows of redundancies and closures at a clutch of local firms has changed the economic boundaries dramatically.

Now, as the delegation of representatives from Bolton Council, the town's strategic economic partnership and the Bolton and Bury Chamber will be saying, Bolton still needs the cash and investment that assisted area status brings.

And they will be hoping that Michael Wills, the parliamentary under secretary in the Department of Trade and Industry, will recognise the town's plight.

Only with this kind of Government backing can Bolton realistically plan to overcome the setbacks thrust upon it by the current recession and build a stronger, more solid jobs' base for the future.

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