Our Friday miscellany of the week's news and events

Amidst all the hoo-hah concerning charging for disabled parking, one thing has not been made clear. The budget statement which proposed milking blue badge holders to underpin the council’s sagging finances reported: “The council would not be able to charge disabled badge holders for parking in the on-street car parks (the Market Place, Wide Bargate etc,) but could reduce down (sic) the “free” period which they are entitled park from three to two hours." All recent assumptions have been that disabled drivers will have to pay anywhere they park in Boston. If this is not the case, it would be a good idea if someone would take the trouble to explain.
Still on budgetary matters, we think that it is high time our council leadership learned to discriminate between "saving” and “charging.” Recent reports have described the new higher parking charges as saving the council £93,000 this year and £112,000 in future years. This is not a saving by any stretch of the imagination, but a charge. It is not "a rose that by any other name would smell as sweet." It is a shabby abuse of language to try to make the ruling group look good – and it stinks to high heaven!  And talking of charging – we read that the Assembly Rooms have been put on the market for £445,000. Desperate as the council may be, this is surely rather optimistic when its own asset valuation at 31st March 2010 listed the building at £140,000 and the land at £35,000.
At least the parish councils dug their heels in when challenged with another big idea from the boys and girls in blue, who wanted to transfer the cost of providing what is known as “footway” lighting from the borough to the parishes – which in some cases would have seen them having to raise their share of the council tax precept by more than 100%. The smallest councils would have looked bad, whilst the BAGIBs (boys and girls in blue) would have been able to boast savings of almost £100,000. And they tell us that Labour is the party of spin!
But the leadership is pushing ahead with  other ways to try to extract money from outside sources. It seems that the next in line will be Mayflower Housing because it is a “big user” of CCTV cameras. The case is summarised by two  delightfully contradictory headlines from the Boston Target. In the first, a call by the beloved leader, Councillor Peter Bedford,  is spelt out in the eight word demand  "Pay for CCTV or we’ll pull the plug.” This is then followed by “Borough council wants help paying for cameras.” It seems a strange way to ask for help to us. Councillor Bedford is quoted as saying that Mayflower has “never paid a fee” for the service – but we wonder whether it has ever been asked for one. Aside from underlining the leadership’s “iron fist in an iron glove” approach to its ratepayers,  the threat to turn off the cameras  also demonstrates a cynical lack of interest in the community. For years, the council has boasted of its CCTV service, the impact it has on crime and the benefits it brings to the citizenry. But once it gets a bit expensive? Someone else can pay, or we'll just turn it off.
It’s rather worrying to learn that Lincolnshire County Council has deferred a vote on contributing £11 million towards the £75 million Boston flood barrier – because it suggests that the council’s executive may be having second thoughts. Although County Hall treats Boston badly most of the time, we would still not have expected something like this. Even the report to the executive states: “Without Lincolnshire County Council's financial contribution, the Environment Agency would need to seek waterways funding from elsewhere. Should this be unsuccessful, or result in a significant delay, the EA would have to take the decision to proceed with a flood-risk only project, to only maintain existing flood defences or identify another approach." The barrier could provide better protection for more than 10,000 residential properties and 900 businesses which are currently at risk of tidal flooding in Boston, and incalculably improve the town's fortunes. We hope that the local lobby machine is hard at work to ensure that it still goes ahead.
Meanwhile, in the week that work started on Anglian Water’s £40 million pipeline to transfer water from Covenham Reservoir to Boston, we note a highly pertinent question asked of the Environment Agency by the Boston Central Neighbourhood Panel- which hosted an open meeting on the Boston Barrier plan on Tuesday. “Why is it proposed to spend silly millions of pounds on an underground fresh water pipe - when they release millions of gallons of the same fresh water from the Witham into the Haven? Surely that money would be better spent on a water treatment plant on the outskirts of town? This would create jobs locally and have less impact on the environment.” It’s a good question. Does anyone have a good answer?
We have something of a bee in our bonnet about councillors using internet blogs to keep in touch with the electorate. But sadly it seems that in most cases the road to hell is paved with good intentions, as so many that start out enthusiastically fall by the wayside. Ironically, a new website has been launched by Boston Borough Councillor Raymond Singleton-McGuire which - among many other things - highlights his political activities. But despite this, the blog section remains dead in the water – with the most "recent" entry posted on 27th May last year.
 The new website – with the poetic title  www.SMG.co.uk - certainly looks impressive, offering property, aviation, development, security, chauffeur hire, management and furniture services. All of these links are still under construction – and the only one currently active is for wedding services. And who do we find there – named as “Lincolnshire’s premier wedding planner?” Another Conservative councillor – Yvonne Gunter.  Both are pictured left at a recent wedding fayre. Well, they do say that the Tories are the party of business.
Whilst tears galore are being shed over the demise of three more town centre shops, a bigger question that surely needs addressing is what is being done to ensure that they are replaced with something similar or better. We note the arrival of yet another  'phone shop in the former Thorntons – possibly even selling secondhand  mobiles  – and yet another application to sell alcohol West Street. To cap it all, there is also an application for a licence to use premises in Craythorne Lane as a Sexual Entertainment Venue -  providing lap dancing, pole dancing and strip shows. Unless steps are taken to call a halt soon - it seems to us that the town has no chance of getting its act together  at all.
A contributor to the Boston Protest March Facebook page this week raised a matter of concern, given all the fuss about Designated Public Place Orders and their supposed control over drinking. He wrote: “I walked through the town park on Friday and counted 11 people on the benches drinking all around the park. I went to the entrance of the park and spoke to the man in the hi-viz jacket and informed him of them and pointed out the sign on the gate entrance saying ‘no drinking in the park or £500 fine,’ and I was told to – carry on with what I was doing, and mind my own business. Is this what we want and expect now, then ......”If the circumstances are as described, this is a problem that needs addressing. Whilst the implementation of the DPPO is optional – and does not, apparently apply to a family picnic where alcohol is being served – eleven people sitting around the park drinking is unacceptable and requires some sort of action.
Elsewhere on the Boston Protest March Facebook page, Boston Borough Council leader Peter Bedford appears to have handed over the reins to protest group leader Dean Everitt to make an important announcement concerning the Task and Finish Group discussions on immigration issues. He told the group's followers yesterday: “Have spoken to Boston council regarding Task and Finish group, and am pleased to be able to say things are getting sorted. There’s going to be several meetings between now and July calling upon police, employers, etc, so we can get answers to stuff like employment, policing, housing, schools etc - so we’re getting there.  I’m also pleased to announce that Peter Bedford has invited council leaders from all seven Lincolnshire districts to attend these task and finish meetings - and all have accepted the offer - so we could end up with a Lincolnshire effort, not just a Boston one. So things are taking shape for the better.”
There’s justified criticism of the decision to award bonuses of almost £70,000 in performance awards to nine members of staff at the East Midlands Development Association since May last year. EMDA, which did little if anything of benefit to Lincolnshire – and more specifically of benefit to Boston - is being scrapped in April after being criticised for being wasteful and bureaucratic. Bonuses for being wasteful and bureaucratic? Don’t let some of our so-called “leaders” hear that - or they’ll want one as well!
A final word on car parking charges. When we asked the other week whether the Boston Standard would be presenting its petition for fairer parking charges to Boston Borough Council, we never anticipated what would transpire at the council meeting earlier this week. A Standard reporter presented the council's portfolio holder for car parks, Councillor Derek Richmond, with 27 protest coupons from readers asking for no increase in car parking charges. If that wasn’t bad enough, three of the coupons were from readers outside the borough - including one from as far away as Kent. We think the Standard might have taken on board the phrase “discretion is the better part of valour” and let its petition slip quietly into the nearest waste paper bin.

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