WARNINGS that smoking can cause blindness should be put on cigarette packets, a top Bolton eye surgeon says.

Dr Simon Kelly, a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at the Royal Bolton Hospital, believes stark pictures of damaged eyes and a warning will persuade people to give up smoking.

Cigarette packets in Australia and New Zealand already carry warnings about the links between smoking and blindness, and experts claim they have really grabbed the public's attention.

The eye surgeon's groundbreaking research showed a strong link between smoking and age-related macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness in the over-50s.

The chemicals in cigarettes affect the nerves at the back of the eye.

Dr Kelly said today that he was taking his campaign to have the warnings introduced on cigarette packets to the European Parliament.

He said: "The knowledge that smoking causes blindness isn't well-known among patients in Bolton.

"In many marketing studies it has been shown that if you vary the message, whatever message you are trying to get across, it has a greater impact.

"The current messages have been around for a long time and have gone stale.

In my view there needs to be new messages."

Dr Kelly has backed the Bolton Evening News' Stub It Out campaign, launched after figures revealed 29.6 per cent of people in Bolton smoke, above the national average of 27 per cent.

Armed with his findings, he is hoping to persuade other countries to join him in a bid to persuade European ministers to introduce the stark warnings of the previously unknown dangers of smoking.

Dr Kelly said: "The campaign has already begun in Bolton, but at this moment I'm trying to get similar activity in all the other European countries so it isn't just the UK calling for this, it's people from all over the continent."

The Bolton Evening News wants smoking banned in public places, including pubs and clubs.

Since it was launched, more than 1,000 people have signed a petition supporting the ban.