LEIGH's newest town centre pub is getting a £400,000 facelift but heritage-conscious locals are not pleased that its name will change.

Owners Bass sent in the workmen last week at The Spinning Jenny in King Street and in early March it should reopen as one of the company's Goose theme pubs.

The pub will be renamed, say Bass, but the link with the area's textile industry heritage will not be entirely severed.

The Spinning Jenny pub marks the site where textile machinery inventor Thomas High lived and where the Spinning Jenny ceramic tiled plaque originally hung.

When old buildings and Spinning Jenny Street were demolished during the development of the town centre by-pass, the tiled plaque was rescued as a souvenir of one of Leigh's most famous sons.

The restored plaque now hangs in the foyer at Leigh Town Hall but a replica of the original was built in to the new pub when it opened 10 years ago.

The developers promise that even though the name will change the replica plaque will maintain pride of place.

A Bass spokesman said: "We are developing the pub as part of our Goose group theme of large. Usual offers include one beer at a pound a pint and a wide range of products with food on offer all day.

"There will be no music and no darts or pool. The pub name will change but no final decision on that has yet been made.

"We are conscious of the textile industry heritage of the area and the plaque will remain."

She said The Spinning Jenny had been operating on only four nights a week but the revamped pub would be open seven days a week from 11am to 11pm.

Leigh Soroptomists' president Margaret Molyneux said members of the society were 'aghast' at the news and did not think the pub name should be changed.

She said: "We made the refurbishment of the original Spinning Jenny plaque our Leigh Borough Centenary project.

"It cost £3,500 to restore it and put it on display in the town hall foyer.

"The name Spinning Jenny is part of our local identity and the pub is right on the spot where the original was.

"We will contact the brewers and hope we can do something to keep the link."