NOBODY could accuse Bolton's small traders of learning from experience. ('Car ban will drivers away customers' January 1).

I had only just come to live in Bolton in 1967, when the original Shankland Cox proposals to pedestrianise Newport Street were being debated.

The correspondence in your columns at that time set new benchmarks for the extremes of hysteria. Economic ruin and imminent penury was staring a whole generation of small shopkeepers in the face, at the very least, if not the end of town centre shopping as we knew it.

For the first few weeks, it seemed as if the traders had been right. Bolton was only the second town to pedestrianise, after Coventry and its pioneering was seen as risky. But as Bolton's citizens learnt the delights of shopping in a street without traffic, the pedestrian footfall rapidly increased and delighted traders rubbed their hands with glee.

Yes, of course Churchgate needs to be carefully designed. Shops will need to be serviced. But it has been done successfully elsewhere. And, however little the petrolheads like having to stretch their legs, it works.

Peter Johnston

Kendal Road

Bolton