Monday 21 May 2012

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anywhere!!


Boston got the BBC treatment last Thursday - with a visit from Radio Lincolnshire and Look North presenter Peter Levy to put the town under the spotlight during his afternoon show and on TV that night as well.
It was part of a week of broadcasts by Radio Lincolnshire - who decided that it would be a good idea after all these years to get out of  Lincoln and look at other places in the county for a change.
We missed the Levy show on the wireless, but had planned to catch up with it through the Beeb’s “Listen Again” service. But unfortunately, the corporation is a bear of little brain on occasion – and could only offer the Radio Humberside version of the programme, with  a different presenter and  no mention of Boston at all.
However, by all accounts the broadcast from the Assembly Rooms was little to write home about.
As we have said before, we don't  bet – but were that not been the case, we could have made a handsome profit by predicting that the BBC’s would come up with its customary stereotypical portrait of Boston.
One item in the lunchtime radio broadcast featured Boston Protest March campaigner Dean Everitt and our local agricultural talking head, farmer Roger Welberry - in a piece about migrant labour ... which permitted the usual claims that indigenous Bostonians are work shy and have turned their back on the fields and packhouses.
On Look North that evening, there was more of the same stale coverage.
Yet again there was a feature on immigration – this time about children attending supplementary classes in their own languages to keep them in touch with their national heritage, followed by an interview with Just Lincolnshire, a charity which promotes equality, and  which is currently working on the Alchemy Project in Boston to bring communities together.
But the lead item on the programme concerned - yes, you’ve guessed it … flooding.
Look North's  Industrial Correspondent Paul Murphy reminded us that “low lying Boston is under increasing threat from rising sea levels …” and featured a piece on the proposed Boston flood barrier, on  which  we are told  that work is now unlikely to start before 2016.
The report claimed that Boston would benefit from a £500m boost for the local economy - and strangely included a brief contribution from Boston BID manager Niall Armstrong – though what the barrier has to do with the BID is anyone’s guess.
Then it was the turn of Boston Borough Council leader Peter Bedford to have his two penn’orth .
Glittering, as if fresh from the shower via the local branch of Greenwood’s Menswear, the interview went well as far as the point where the leader exchanged pleasantries with Peter Levy – i.e. the first five seconds.
Asked what proof was there that the barrier will boost tourism, the leader cryptically replied “The proof of the tourism is secondary, the main aim of the barrier obviously is flood protection, that it the primary use for it.”
Peter Levy then  launched his killer follow-up  - that Boston has not suffered any flooding since 1978.
“Umm , Correct.”
After a pause for eye rolling and consulting first the floor and then the ceiling, Councillor Bedford continued: “But the whole of the outfit to do with insurance and everything else,  errmm  is  all stacked around this issue. The Environment Agency object to any building, etc in Boston.”
Peter Levy went on to say that he had earlier been talking to fishermen.
“They say the barrier’s going to be in the wrong place, and it could cause further flooding.”
If nothing else, the leader always tries to sound confident –  and bravely, more knowledgeable than people who really know what they are talking about - in this case by giving the impression that he is wiser than the professionals whose families have spent generations harvesting our seas and might be expected to know a thing or two about tides and flooding.
People will always say that, there will always be people with negatives. But you ask 13,000 homeowners that’s going to be protected by it which they would rather have.”
By that, did he mean which they would rather have – a wrongly placed barrier that could cause further flooding or … what?
Councillor Bedford’s estimate of the ratio between flood protection and tourism was 80% flood defences and 20% tourism.
But that conveniently sidesteps Lincolnshire County Council’s month-long postponement of a decision on its £11 million funding contribution to the scheme because it wanted to know more about the chance of the barrier being raised for lonmore  seven months of the year – which would maintain water levels for tourism purposes.
Sadly, once again the score seems to be: BBC – 1: Boston - Lost.
And sadly, once again, the great and the good of Boston appear to be complicit in achieving this result.


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Our former blog is archived at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com


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