BOLTON Sea Cadets want to buy the town's Territorial Army base . . . to avoid having to abandon ship.

They are set to apply for National Lottery cash to buy the Fletcher Street barracks to stop their 55-year-old unit sinking.

TS Dido - named after Bolton's first adopted ship HMS Dido - has been based in cottages attached to the barracks since they had to quit their previous headquarters at Kensington Place last year.

But they have now approached Bolton Council to back the Lottery bid and they have approached the Territorial Army Volunteer Reserve to buy the Ministry of Defence owned barracks. Mr Brian Howcroft, chairman of the cadets' management committee, said: "We have made an approach to the TAVR and we are waiting to hear from them.

"If we have a chance of making a bid, it would secure the future of the Sea Cadets in Bolton.

"We have a long and proud history and we are a very well respected unit nationally."

He explained that they won the prestigious Gibraltar Cup competition last year and they had now been nominated for another award, the Canada Cup.

Bolton Council's management and finance committee gave the proposals its backing at a meeting yesterday.

Cllr Bob Howarth, Bolton Council leader, said: "They have the ambition to go for a Lottery bid and we will give them all the support we can."

But councillors rejected a call from Tory deputy leader Cllr John Walsh to complain to the Government about the plan to shut Fletcher Street.

Cllr Howarth said: "There will still be another TA barracks in Bolton and we have to accept that this country is not now the great military power that it was and the Government has the right to review its defence requirements." Meanwhile, the cadets have blamed the "jinx" of the Titantic for a wave of bad luck.

In a newsletter article, the T.S. Dido cadets feared that the closure of the TA barracks could have left them homeless.

The newsletter reads: "One of the year's biggest box office earners was the film Titanic, the story of a ship which disappears to the bottom of the sea, but that's not the only ship that has disappeared recently.

"Bolton Sea Cadets are on the verge of seeing their third ship disappear in less than a year."

Bitter blows for TS Dido include moving from Kensington Place and the shock news that their affiliated Royal Navy ship HMS Beaver was to be de-commissioned.

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