By BEVERLY GREENBERG A SNOOKER hall boss is desperate to speed up council plans to knock down his business . . . before the vandals bleed him dry!

Mr Stephen Howarth and his wife, Christine, who run the Q Club on the Brownlow Fold Shopping Precinct, have been plagued by thugs ripping apart the now half-derelict centre.

Arson attacks, break-ins and mindless vandalism have cost the couple thousands during their three years in charge of the snooker club.

In the latest attack vandals set light to a pile of rubbish next to the club, destroying pipes supplying water to the toilets and sinks.

Mr Howarth said: "This will cost us £500 to get repaired and there is nothing to stop it happening again and again, indefinitely.

"The telephone lines got cut so often that I have started repairing them myself. At about £85 for a British Telecom call out, it was getting ridiculous.

"They say the odds are stacked against anyone running a small business. In our case they could give odds of 10 to one against our survival.

"There is only us and the bookies left. The area is a disaster and something desperate has to be done.

"The kids around here are bleeding us dry, and the sooner the council moves on with its plans to knock down the centre and rebuild on it, the better.

"That way, the building will come under a compulsory purchase order and at least we'll get something for the business. As things stand at the moment we are hanging on by the skin of our teeth.

"Who, for example, is going to want to park their car outside?

"I know of fellas who do not like walking through the precinct at night - and they are grown men.

"The place is falling apart. All the flats along the precinct are empty and in a terrible state.

"Each has been broken into and ransacked.

"It is just wanton vandalism and the sooner the council puts an end to it, the better."

A £2 million housing and supermarket development scheme has already been given the go-ahead by Bolton Council for the Brownlow Fold shopping precinct.

It comes under the City Challenge scheme, but project manager, Ray Blakey, told the BEN there was no definite time scale to when the work would start.

This, he explained, was because the process for development was not entirely in the City Challenge or Council's hands.

He added: "We are working on the Compulsory Purchase Orders and are negotiating with some of the occupants.

"We also have to go through various processes for funding for the project.

"This is in no way a fixed date, but we are probably looking for work to start in about 12 months time."

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