THE exciting news that Crompton Place is to be transformed as part of a £250m redevelopment plan for Bolton town centre got us thinking.

Under the plan, the existing shopping centre will be demolished and the site used for a hotel, office space and housing as well as retail, leisure, dining and events spaces.

The area occupied by Crompton Place off Victoria Square is certainly no stranger to change.

We delved into the archives to find these fascinating pictures which show previous redevelopment work taking place in the town centre.

Land around Hotel Street and Acresfield was ripe for development lying as it does off Victoria Square in the heart of the town.

Various building projects had been undertaken in the 1960s and it was probably the construction of a new Marks and Spencer store which signalled the start of a major transformation.

By the late 1960s plans wete underway to transform the Acresfield site into the Arndale Centre - a £1.25m covered shopping centre.

The Arndale would, of course, be come the site of Crompton Place and scores of older buldings were brought down and a mass of steelwork began to rise out of the ground creating the shopping centre that we can still recognise today.

The story of Crompton Place has been one of evolution. The Shipgates Centre which was constructed in 1990-91 became part of Crompton Place.

Now planners have given the go-ahead to the next phase in the evolution of the town centre which will see Crompton Place demolished and a new development take its place.