"Few resources  flow in Boston's direction ..."

Yesterday, we talked about flood risk and what was being done about it, and today we continue with a similar theme that involves water – but also longer term concerns about Boston’s burgeoning population.
In a letter headed “Starved of resources as Boston floods with migrants and water,” Independent Lincolnshire County Councillor Ray Newell congratulates Anglian Water for starting work on building the infrastructure to meet the needs of a much bigger Boston.
“The Office for National Statistics predicts that Boston’s population will rise by 12,000 in the next eight years,” he writes. 
“Anglian Water are spending £40 million laying a new pipeline from the Louth area to Boston, to meet this need.
“Bostonians will not die of thirst.
“But other public services and organisations at national, regional and local level, have not laid a brick, or turned a sod. 
“Indeed, they do not even have plans in place to cater for Boston’s 12,000 new residents!  12,000 is slightly more than the present population of Mablethorpe or 80% of that of Sleaford.
“Imagine picking up that population, complete with all their infrastructure, roads, houses, businesses, schools, and placing them in Boston - within the next eight years!
“Sleaford’s £200 million link road, Mablethorpe’s £50million Lindum development, let alone Lincoln’s Eastern bypass and Grantham’s £30 million for their bypass, are all understandably envied.
“That is because the size and extent of the problem of Boston’s 12,000 population increase is being ignored. 
“Unlike the water, few resources are flowing in Boston’s direction.
“Rather strangely, enormous amounts of non-salt water are discharged from Boston’s Haven River into the North Sea.
“The Environment Agency … estimates that approximately 500,000 million litres of water per year are discharged into the sea from Boston.
“If just a small percentage of that 500,000,000,000 figure, was placed in a reservoir, on inferior agricultural land outside Boston, it would supply not just Boston, but areas beyond, with water for many years to come.”
Quite a few people have now raised this issue – taking the view that to  dump fresh water from the Witham into the salt water of the Haven is nonsensical at a time when we are told what valuable resource fresh water is.
And co-incidentally, this comes as  Anglian Water has announced a £44m reservoir and water treatment works near Lincoln to store 230m-litres of water taken from the River Trent and supply homes and businesses in the city with up to 20m litres a day.
A new pumping station will remove  the water and pump it through a new pipeline into Lincoln's existing supply network.
Aside from the fact that the best solution to the water supply problem is considered appropriate for Lincoln but not for Boston, we find it hard to understand why no-one seems to have thought of a reservoir near Boston before – which is the obvious answer.
If the predictions are correct, and our population increases by 12,000 in just eight years, surely no-one seriously believes that it will suddenly stop.
Of course it won’t.
The increase will continue, and we wonder how soon it might then be before the pipeline supply proves to be inadequate.
Not only that, but a 63 kilometre – 40 mile - pipeline must surely be more prone to operational difficulties than a  water treatment works and reservoir sitting on Boston’s doorstep.
Finally, yesterday’s piece on local flood risks and the progress to reduce it prompted a reader to send in a feature from last Wednesday’s Money Mail.
It covered at length the problems faced by people whose homes have been flooded - and  who then faced difficulties finding insurance cover at a sensible price, or were offered insurance with ludicrous excesses - £20,000 was one figure cited.
But worst of all is that - yet again - Boston was named as the worst flood risk area in the country.
We know that this is no longer correct – and the removal of this unwanted branding should be our starting point in any campaign to improve Boston’s image.

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