BARS and restaurants are counting the cost of the weekend riot in Bolton town centre after England's World Cup defeat.

Hooligans fought each other and attacked passers-by and police in Bradshawgate on Saturday evening.

Pubs and bars shut on police advice for around three hours as up to 500 youths clashed in the street.

Officers in riot gear were brought in to move the troublemakers away from the town centre. Some pubs reopened after calm was restored at 10pm, but others stayed shut.

While there was frustration at the financial losses incurred, there was agreement among business owners that the incident had been handled well by police.

Nick Hogan, owner of The Swan, Barristers and Eden, praised the police, his fellow licensees and town centre agency NightSafe, but added that it had still cost his pubs dearly. "I have nothing but praise for the police, the other licensees in Bradshawgate and NightSafe. We worked as a team and we worked well to contain the disturbances and we avoided what could have been a disaster," he said.

"But I have still lost thousands of pounds in lost trade. Saturday is my busiest night."

Laura Miseo, Bolton Town Centre Management's evening economy manager, said that businesses had lost money, but the cost would have been greater had they not closed their doors.

"It was the large numbers of people out on the street that started the problems, and then disturbances flared up within groups. Many traders simply stayed closed after that, and I know that many of them lost money, but the costs could have been far higher in terms of fighting and damage to property."

A spokesman for Barracuda said: "We didn't reopen the bar. Obviously, we were disappointed at the impact on normal Saturday evening trade, but we were pleased with the way the operation was handled."

Kate Elston, the assistant manageress at Dali Bar, said: "We closed with everyone else but reopened later on. We were able to recoup what we lost over the previous couple of hours, so fortunately our losses were minimised."

Jo Ruscoe, manageress of La Tasca, said: "We were allowed to stay open to serve drinks just with meals, but we lost a lot of passing trade on the evening, and we had calls cancelling bookings from people who heard there was trouble. In all, we estimate that we were down by about £2,000."

Max Gnoyke, managing director of The Olive Press which has a restaurant in Nelson Square, said: "It certainly dented our takings for the night. The main thing was to make sure our staff got home safely.We did stay open, but it was very difficult, even after everything had calmed down."

Seventeen people were arrested following the incident on Saturday. Twelve people were issued with fixed penalty notices for disorderly conduct.

A 25-year-old man pleaded not guilty to threatening and abusive behaviour at Bolton Magistrates Court yesterday. Sean Handley, of Brownlow Road, Horwich, was bailed until July 27.