Having read your report on the planning application for a 10-storey, 394 apartment block on Bradshawgate (BN October 20), I can’t help wondering if Bolton Council has ‘lost the plot’ when it comes to promoting the town centre’s regeneration.

So far, the people of Bolton have given their support in principle to its efforts to broaden the appeal of the centre with a greater emphasis on residential accommodation, but nowhere have we expressed a desire for (or even been consulted on) the idea of re-introducing high-rise living.

Boltonians and our council rejected this type of development in the 1980/90s with the demolition of Skagen Court and, to date, we have been spared the ‘high rise horrors’ of what has been emerging in Manchester city centre.

There a wave of overseas ‘investment’ has resulted in a forest of speculative flats to let aimed solely at the super-rich and at the expense of affordable accommodation for ordinary Mancunians.

Surely Bolton doesn’t want to go down this route! But that is where we are heading with a 20-storey ‘landmark’ apartment block already approved on Trinity Street and now this 10-storey block across the road.

The problem clearly lies with Bolton Council and the design briefs (or lack of them) that it gives to prospective developers. With no clear guidance about what is required, these overseas ‘spec’ developers will obviously look to build the maximum amount of floorspace on their sites to generate maximum value with little regard to their local impact (this has also happened at Crompton Place).

The real problem for the town is that these people don’t know about the local property market and don’t really mind if their schemes lie empty for a long time (we all remember the saga of the former Fire Station on Marsden Road).

It is the job of Bolton Council to specify what is needed from their own local market research and to set limits to height, density, appearance etc, not to offer a ‘blank cheque’ to anyone who shows an interest.

This smacks of desperation not town planning and it will be to the long term detriment of our town.

I, and Bolton and District Civic Trust, have consistently campaigned for a ‘cleaner, greener, safer’ strategy for the town centre which is the basic requirement for an imaginative 21st Century regeneration. For starters we could turn the Moor Lane bus station site into an urban park instead of another ‘spec’ development site - now that would show imagination!

Stuart Whittle