by Keith Davies Bolton Council’s Director of Development and Regeneration

THERE has never been a better time for the people of Bolton to rally together to support their local businesses.

This is why The Bolton News’ “We’re Backing Bolton” campaign is so important and serves as a call to action for everyone to shop locally in the run up to Christmas and beyond.

We know people have a lot of choice as to where they do their Christmas shopping but when you combine Bolton town centre, Middlebrook and our four district centres — Farnworth, Horwich, Little Lever and Westhoughton — we have as good a retail offer as anywhere in the region.

People will always remind us of where things need to be improved and despite the recession we have managed to progress major schemes to support the regeneration of the town centre and there is more to come with the new Interchange and other schemes that will make Bolton an even better place to live, work and shop.

As a council we always look to establish partnerships with key stakeholders and we have done that with major retailers in the town centre through the Central Bolton Partnership.

In the upcoming months, there will be great offers, incentives and events that everyone can enjoy.

We not only want local people to shop here but want to make sure other people in neighbouring towns get the message too.

We know we still have challenges to meet over the next few years but we believe we can move forward and are confident that Bolton has a bright future.

Thousands of local people have jobs in the retail sector and one of the best ways we can help sustain and grow the number of jobs is by shopping locally.

Bolton has so much going for it and everyone should get behind the “We’re Backing Bolton” campaign.