BOLTON has been taking lessons from town centre bosses in the West Midlands about how to run a safe and successful nightlife.

Councillors and Bolton's Town Centre Partnership are strongly promoting the development of bars, restaurants and other entertainment to keep the town lively when the shops close.

And they have been picking up tips from their counterparts in Wolverhampton where the night-time economy is booming.

Wolverhampton's town centre manager Ken Mackie said: "Run properly the night time economy can be a real boom for the whole business community."

The Midlands town has seen rapid expansion of licensed premises including pubs, wine bars, restaurants and clubs.

There are 40 licensed premises in the town centre area, employing about 1,500 staff and attracting around 25,000 customers each night at the weekend.

And the Wolverhampton team have visited Bolton to give a briefing on how it all works.

Mr Mackie said: "Our licensing magistrates take a liberal attitude. Providing the premises and the licensee are suitable they generally grant a drinks licence.

"Beyond that the general attitude is to leave things to market forces and if a pub or bar is wanted by the public it will survive." Currently four other town centre licensed premises are in the pipeline.

One of the arguments opponents of opening up licensed premises cite is that large crowds congregate waiting for taxis leading to potential flash-points.

But Wolverhampton town centre managers have tackled this by setting up special bus services.

At weekends buses leave key points in the town centre and go out to the suburbs on circular routes at half hour intervals for a fixed fee of £1.50.

Mr Mackie added: "It works well, the bus operators are happy and the taxi firms have also been very co-operative and understanding."

He added: "People used to go to Birmingham for a night out, now they stay in Wolverhampton and spend their money here. In fact we're actually getting people travelling to us now from Birmingham and other towns like Northampton and Nottingham."

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