VETERAN ornithologist Frank Horrocks was honoured when a new hide for bird watchers was named after him.

Mayors and mayoresses representing 14 councils in the region descended on Pennington Flash to formally open the new hide.

The first citizens of eight Greater Manchester districts - in addition to Warrington, West Lancashire, Chorley, Halton and St Helens - were all the guests of Wigan Mayor Cllr Ken Pye.

The hide replaces a previous one on the same site which was destroyed by arsonists last year.

The visitors were taken on a tour of the country park before returning to Leigh and boarding a narrowboat for a trip along the canal to Astley Green colliery museum, where they saw Europe's largest steam winding engine and one of the region's best preserved examples of colliery headgear.

Cllr Pye said: "The delights of our tourist attractions are well known now, but the borough as a whole has a lot more to offer and I wanted to ensure our visitors saw a different aspect of our local heritage.

"There are some quite fascinating areas on the eastern side of the borough, for example, the beautiful countryside of Pennington Flash, where we have a very significant bird reserve and the historic colliery site at Astley Green which has the potential to become a major mining museum."

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