A sorry sign of the times is reflected in a letter to Boston Eye from Mike Borrill – who is well remembered as a campaigner for a by-pass for Boston. “A few days ago we visited Nuneaton and … after enjoying some refreshments at the museum’s cafe and browsing the tourist information, we walked through the park to get to our next destination. The park gardens were an abundance of colourful displays with plenty of pathways radiating in all ways with ample seats for the weary to rest and enjoy the setting. There were no intimidating groups of men drinking from cans and bottles, and it was evident that families were enjoying themselves in a friendly atmosphere.

We walked back through the park and into the town centre (pictured left) which was mainly pedestrianised. What a joy to walk through the streets without having to dodge or look out for cars or buses. The town had it right. Create a safe environment for shoppers and pedestrians and visitors will come back time and again. There did not appear to be many empty shops. It does dismay me now to read in the local papers that drinking away from the town centre is not a problem.  Why is it that seats are removed to stop drinking at certain places if there is no problem? These seats were a boon to the elderly who needed a rest on their weary travels and the root of the problem should be tackled rather than the majority having to suffer for a minority who are bringing the town into disrepute. The officials of this town need to “grasp the nettle.” The town has a wonderful history and we should now try to stop the rot before the damage gets beyond repair. If the town was a school it would have had inspectors brought in before now to put it back onto the correct path. It is only when you visit other places that the sad decline of the town is brought home to you.”

One point that seems to have been missed with the news that Boston is to lose its ambulance station is the location of where the 13 “hubs” that are to replace the old stations. According to East Midlands Ambulance Service, those in Lincolnshire will be sited at Lincoln, Skegness and Sleaford. Although the traffic flow through Boston has eased a little in recent times, it is still hard to imagine how well the town will be served by one hub at Sleaford and another at Skegness … particularly during the summer months. We understand that there will be “tactical deployment points" around the place where ambulances are stationed to improve response times. But the bottom line – once again – is that Boston is being relegated to the lower divisions among the county’s towns.
We note from the most recent spending figures published by Boston Borough Council that the lavishing of taxpayers’ money on the Geoff Moulder Leisure Centre is continuing unabated.  The latest list of spending by the council of sums over £500 in April shows two separate sums of £8,763 and £5,283 on “work” at the pool, and another £2,900 on “uniforms.” – a total of around £17,000. By our reckoning the spend between September last year and the end of March was £241,600, so this latest splurge brings it to £258,000. Not bad for an original plan which envisaged the project costing £195,000 from the reserves, it it?  And has the extra £60,000 come from the reserves as well. Who knows? Perhaps someone will ask.
Other little snippets from the April spending figures include almost £2,500 for the now nearly forgotten and virtually redundant Master Gardener programme. Then there is a £565 levy payment to Boston BID for the Market Place. For what? It’s a vast open space. They’ll be charging for the pavements next. The Mayor’s Civic Dinner set ratepayers back to the tune of almost £1,700; there was £550 for a finger buffet – that’s a lot of fingers -  and £625 for hospitality at the Service to the Community Awards. Finally, there is the handsome sum of £6,628 for a music machine at Boston Crematorium paid to the Yaboo Company Limited – that’s almost £127 a week.  Yaboo is the mother company of Wesley Music, and provides “a unique library of recordings specifically for use in crematoria.” We wonder how great the need for this is at such a relatively high cost.
Whilst the Boston BID website still believes it has “as good a chance as any in being successful” in the first round of applications to be a Portas Pilot town, the results of the second round have just been announced. Apparently Boston did not bother to rejig it’s application for resubmission after its lamentable first effort was rightly ignored, so it is no surprise that it has been left out of the 15 new towns awarded pilot status. Now, Local Government Minister Grant Shapps has urged MPs from the 392 Town Teams not chosen, to come forward and sign a national pledge to become a Town Team Partner - enabling access to a package of support worth £5.5million nationwide. Let’s hope that Boston will get around to it sometime soon.
A reader tells us that he got to thinking about all the fuss that was made about a new chewing gum removal machine that was bought a while ago. “I remember it being in the papers and seeing it around town an odd time or two -  but that was ages ago. I wonder what happened to it. I also understand that the machine that preceded it - which if I remember correctly froze the gum - sits unloved in a corner of the municipal yard on Fen Road.”
But on a brighter note, he adds: “It is interesting to see the hard work that has been done by those on Community Payback clearing the areas in the back of the cinema car park and on the side of Johns Adams Way, opposite the old Five Lamps near St Johns Ambulance.  It is looking really tidy, and they have cleared away all those nasty blue cider bottles.”
We note plans by Boston’s joint deputy leader, Councillor Raymond Singleton-McGuire,  to turn the former HSBC bank building 
(left) into a café or restaurant - possibly in time for Christmas. The building has been advertised for rent at £27,500 a year for some while. Councillor Singleton McGuire is quoted as saying that he regards it as “very prestigious” and “almost a landmark.”  We’re not so sure about that, given the building’s proximity to Boston’s pawn shop and Boston’s porn shop. Initially, we wondered why he didn’t consider it as a replacement venue for the wedding business he planned to run from his home –  it looks a bit like a wedding cake after all - but that might be a good reason!
We’re somewhat baffled by the latest big idea on the Boston Borough Council’s website, which appeared on Wednesday. “The new self service functionality is available.” It witters. “Simply click on the link below "View your Council Tax, Benefits and Business Rates account online" and follow the onscreen instructions.” Just one problem, though – there is no link.
We were surprised to note the appearance of the Olympic logo on a letterhead e-mailed by Boston Borough Council. We wonder whether it is on electronic postings only, or whether a batch of paperwork has been overprinted especially for the occasion. If so, we hope that the council has heeded its own copyright warnings issued to others who considered using the logo as the torch procession traversed Boston recently.  


We are sure that they did, but wonder whether this has involved some sort of royalty payment to the Olympic obermeisters, who seem to have their hands out for money at every turn. What does elude us completely though, is why on earth the logo needs to be on the borough’s letterheads at all.
The uproar over the cancellation of the Boston Beat concert in Central Park prompted a complaint to Boston Borough Council concerning the conduct of officers. It has now been resolved in what could be record time – having been made on 2^nd July, and done and dusted by the 25^th. It’s a wordy response, but it appears that although people didn’t know things that they should have done, it didn’t really matter. So that’s all right  then.  We’ll have more to say about the Boston Beat debacle next week. Among the unclear issues are whether it has been cancelled or postponed - and we’ll be asking how a council cabinet member who is also a member of the board of Boston BID – to which the council pays a handsome levy, and is therefore a member organisation – can brashly reject a perfectly relevant question to him at a council meeting with the words: “Since BID is a Private Company Limited by Shares and quite independent of this Council, any such matter is entirely one for the BID Board and its Directors surely?”  If he had a cat, we are sure that he would name it Pom. Pom puss! Get it?
Yesterday, we wrote about transparency and its fitfulness where Boston Borough Council is concerned. One of the things we were promised by the new regime was more openness regarding council agenda documents – and indeed it has seemed to be the case that the notorious “pink papers” have been conspicuous by their absence recently. On an agenda formerly, a dividing line appeared between public items and the secret ones - with the explanation that the latter would require expulsion of the public and the press from the meeting. However, we now realise that at least one item was dealt with in secret session last week without any clue being given on the agenda. How many other things are being sneaked through in this way, we wonder?  Read Boston Eye on Monday to learn more …

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