A recent soggy stroll into town was re-paid with the usual pop-up tourist attractions – the great lake that springs up at the entrance to the Botolph Street car park, and which seems to get bigger and deeper each time it rains – and the  chain of smaller lagoons which appear as if by magic to adorn the Pescod shopping precinct.

Elsewhere, in Strait Bargate, the rain highlighted the gradually deepening indentations being ground into the cobbles by the remorseless daily grind of the Into Town bus rat run.

In the Market Place, the rain was nurturing the grass and moss growing between the setts, which we somehow feel ought not to be happening.

We didn’t got so far as to check the state of the newly re-surfaced Cattle Market car park, but are certain that the flooding reported to us last week was there in all its saturated splendour.

These dismal sights reminded us of all the recent debate about the future of retailing in Boston – and it is not surprising when you look more closely around you.

The nonsense spouted about the change from retail to “destinations” seems to be exactly that – but the nature of the retail choices are the ones to note.

Boston town centre is an elephants’ graveyard of mobile phone shops, and charity shops.

Just look at our photographs above and you’ll see what we mean.

The view across the Market Place from the abandoned eyesore that once was Millets shows a row of shops bracketed by two that will shortly disappear – the Edinburgh Woollen Mill Shop and Greenwoods.

Between them stand two food shops and a charity shop.

In Strait Bargate, three phone shops side by side dominate the main retail presence, along with food shops and charity shops.

We’ve lost count of the number of beauty and nail parlours, and the recent arrival of yet another tattoo parlour – this time in Pump Square – brings the count to four, as far as we can tell.

The food shops are clearly vital, as a walk through the town is never without an encounter with some of the many Bostonians who have managed to turn synchronised walking, talking and eating into something of a local art from. If ever it became accepted as an Olympic category, the PRSA could house the training camp for this peripatetic pigging.

But we would question how many people in Boston really want to have a tattoo applied whilst simultaneously watching a shoal of toothless garra rufa fish nibbling the dead skin off their feet.

In his most recent epistle to the Bostonians, borough council leader Pete Bedford spoke glowingly of the South East Lincolnshire Joint Planning Committee.

But as we pointed out last week, the problem with organisations such as these is that by and large they are nothing more than talking shops.

What is the point in literally spending years and years in meeting after meeting when at the end of the day events overtake decisions and the hands of planners are so heavily tied?

It ought to be possible for a truly local plan to spell out what a town centre should accommodate – the correct blend of shops and services that would make it uniquely attractive to both residents and visitors alike.

But in reality, this is not the case.

Plans for a change of use cannot be turned down simply because local councillors say that “enough is enough.”

Otherwise, we should surely not have row upon row of mobile phone shops, leavened with fast food outlets, charity shops and of course, bookies’ shops.

And certainly, we do not think that the five years between 2008 and 2013 would have seen the number of shops, supermarkets and newsagents with an off-licence facility across Boston increased by two thirds – from 35 to 59 if it had been possible to refuse many of the applications.

The sad reality is that a look at the centre of Boston shows that when shops become empty, there is no shortage of candidates for the vacancies.

Phone shops predominate because they are high profit companies with low overheads locked in unending cutthroat competition with their rivals which need to be nearby so that the one that shouts the loudest with the most attractive offers is the one that gets the trade.

Others – the charity shops and the like – often rely on empty properties becoming available on short term agreements made with landlords who think that a token rent is better than no rent at all.

The only two that appear to buck that trend are on Wide Bargate – the so-called community rooms which have manage to out-shab some of the shabbiest empty and neglected buildings in the area in the long term, and which are a disgrace to behold.

In the meantime, the great and the good of Boston stick with the promise of jam tomorrow – which as we all know, never comes.

As Benjamin Franklin wrote in Poor Richard's Almanack  “He that lives upon hope will die fasting.”

***

One reason that jam features on tomorrow’s menu so regularly is that too many people who are old enough (and consider themselves important enough) grasp at straws when they think that at last, some big idea is coming to the rescue of Boston’s flagging fortunes.

A few years ago, it was the Merchants Quay project, which was going to transform Boston into a regional magnet for shoppers, but which fell flat on its face when the big name store that used to take pole position in such schemes decided to pull out.

More recently, there were banner headlines with the announcement of a £3 million marina to be built on Fenside Road.

That was back in September 2012 – since when there doesn’t seem to have been another word.

Now though, Boston is teetering on the brink of  “a major regeneration project” with the application for the first phase of “The Quadrant” development at leafy Wyberton.

If you are the developer, then this plan is the best thing since sliced bread – and the headlines for it have been hugely favourable, to the point where it seems impossible to conceive that a single soul could possibly have a bad word to say for it.

Not only that, but Boston borough councillors have lauded the plans as "bold", "visionary" and "ambitious" – so they’re not asking any questions either.

Interestingly, so far only the new football stadium is a full application to allow for work on that part of the scheme to begin without delay if approval is given.

This is because the lease on Boston United’s existing York Street ground expires in January 2018, so a new home is something of a priority.

The football club is also owned by the developer behind the Quadrant scheme, and to us, the elephant in the room is not so much what is built at Wyberton, but what happens to the current club site.

It’s not rocket science to speculate that it will become yet another housing development – despite the fact that it is badly situated when you take into account the huge increase in traffic using John Adams Way and other local roads that would result.

However, any application would become almost irresistible once a new stadium was up and running – something which no-one yet seems to have mentioned.

It would be wrong to imagine that everything is rosy as far at the Quadrant plan is concerned, though.

Brian Rush – a former Boston borough councillor until his retirement on health grounds – is now happily well enough to take on board the concerns of some local people which might otherwise have been swept away in the current wave of euphoria.

He told Boston Eye:  “I am very concerned at the lack of investigative response that has been shown by local residents. One wonders though, whether the ‘publicity’ so far is designed in such a way so as to reduce the level of resistance!

“I am, I’m afraid, becoming more than a little suspicious of how ‘aspirational proposals’ seem to get plastered across front pages of the local press, so far in advance of being ‘officially presented to officials and elected members including, members of the local Planning Committee.’ That cannot be right.

“However, it is even more worrying that the aspirations of ‘developers’ are sometimes given generous exposure to members, under the guise of the developer’s charitable desire into gaining a better understanding of Boston’s possible future requirements.”

He goes on: “I am becoming increasingly suspicious of how one begins to see the project being portrayed in the local press, and indeed through electronic media.

“It seems to me that by using this ‘aspiration’ in a particular way, the ‘developer’ is able to present a ‘fabulous (though of course, only aspirational) project in a particular area.’

“At this point a ‘fantasy’ is created ... completely unhindered by such things as planning laws, impact on residents and amenities! After all, it is nothing more than ‘an idea.’

“Of course neither does one need to take account of implications or ‘impact assessment’  burdens upon infrastructure, increase in traffic,  lack of or provision of parking amenities etc. etc.

“But – and  it is a very important BUT –  the  man in the street who only sees the ‘fabulous headline’ worded in a very specific way might then simply believe that, he must have missed the ‘notice’ when Planning Permission Had Been Given!

“It does not take very many residents to think this, in order to seriously lessen any resistance to the project.

“We are not all guilty of being so easily misled, but for everyone that ‘thinks they have missed the deadline’ it reduces that resistance, and the developer can once again rub his grubby little hands!

“The residents have to endure forever the outcomes.

“The Wyberton Quadrant Action Group has been set up to oppose this development, and ask the people of Wyberton to join us in a protest meeting.”

The first phase of the Quadrant scheme will be discussed at a special meeting of Boston’s planning committee in late August or early September.

And guess what, the phase after that will include … a marina.

***

Last week’s European parliamentary elections had unusual repercussions here in Boston – with some unwanted and unwelcome support for the United Kingdom Independence Party, when a sign was nailed to a preserved tree on Pilgrim’s Patch near John Adams Way, which commemorated 200 years of American Independence.

The sign was one of several which sprang up around the town, and the one on Pilgrim’s Patch sent Boston Borough Council’s Portfolio holder for bridges, planters and flags, “berserk” according to local “newspaper” reports. – which is something that we are sorry not to have witnessed.

Sue Ransome, UKIP’s county councillor for Boston East, told us: “About four weeks ago we noticed a tall thin sign saying ‘UKI’ situated in the roundabout at Liquorpond Street – you  couldn't see the  ‘P’ because of the undergrowth.  This was then cut and the whole of the sign was visible.

“I rang Andy Wharff at Lincolnshire Highways and reported it to him.

“1 – It wasn’t an official UKIP sign.

“2 – We had no idea who would have put it there,

“3 – We didn't have permission from the owner of the sign to remove it, and finally, we didn’t feel that it was safe for one of us to try to remove it in the middle of all the traffic, therefore we asked the council to remove it.

“I then made several other calls over the next few days reporting all the others we had seen. These were mainly sited in the centre of roundabouts. 

“After about a week all went quiet and we saw no more.”

Subsequently, the Electoral Office at Boston Borough Council rang Mrs Ransome’s husband Don, a UKIP organiser, and asked him to remove a sign which had appeared at Burgess Pit. 

“Don and our son went down and found a similar sign there, which they removed.

“This was followed by several more calls from the Electoral Office reporting more of these signs, including one at Pilgrims Patch, one near the Memorial Garden in Wide Bargate and finally one which was in somebody's home …  they had displayed the  centrefold of the UKIP leaflet in their own window.

“We then drove around looking for and removing others that we found on the main roadways in the town.

“UKIP use ‘corex’ boards which are produced with no individual names on and are the only boards/signs which we have ever used. 

“These are attached by tie wraps/cable ties to lamp posts and street signs, once we have applied for and received permission.

“Further, we always remove them again once the election is over and before the time limit for removal, thereby being environmentally friendly and being able to use then again and again.

“Also, as the Poppy Appeal organiser for Boston and District having managed to raise more than £125,000 over the last five years, does anyone really think that we have a complete disregard for the very important links we have with the past whether it be one of the many war conflicts or the anniversary of our town’s link with the past and the Pilgrim Fathers?

“Both Don and I have a great respect for tradition and heritage, and we would never damage any type of property, particularly a very important tree.”

***

 Still with last week’s elections, the upsurge in UKIP seats on local councils across the land is being hailed as one in the eye for the old established parties – but we are not so sure in the longer term. Recent events in Lincolnshire and more locally in Boston itself all go to show that a few swallows do not a summer make.

UKIP’s Lincolnshire storm which last year saw the party gain 16 seats at the expense of the Conservative overall majority rapidly fragmented through political dissent, and now just eleven of them fly the party flag.

And at borough council level we have seen two councillors elected under the UKIP banner reject the party entirely.

They now stand as “Lincolnshire Independents” which we suppose sounds better than U-seless Kippers!

***

Despite all this, local support for UKIP was considerable in the Boston counting area – in fact it was claimed to be the biggest level of support in the entire country

With 14,697 of an electorate of 44,081 – that’s just 33.34% - voting, UKIP polled 7,570 votes. The Tories were next with 3,661, Labour with 1,613 and the Liberal Democrats with 631. The rest of the field was: An Independence from Europe 364;  British National Party 214; English Democrats 157; Green Party 445 and the Harmony Party 21.

Might we see and more name changes in the not-too-distant future to reflect the results, we wonder?

***

As might be expected, UKIP leader Nigel Farage remains bullish, and according to some reports is considering Boston as a possible seat to fight at next year’s general election.

Writing in the Spectator, George Eaton says: “My guess is that Farage will look to Lincolnshire, where UKIP is now the official opposition after winning 16 county council seats and depriving the Tories of overall control. The party performed notably well in Boston, where it won ten of the 11 divisions after capitalising on local concern over immigration (the town has been nicknamed "Little Poland" due to its high eastern European population, the largest outside of London.)

“As a result, one of the seats Farage is likely to be eyeing for 2015 is Boston and Skegness, where the party finished fourth in 2010 with 9.5 per cent of the vote  – its second best result after Buckingham.”

This may be a little out of date given the ructions here in Kippershire, but Boston is certainly on a number of lists as a target seats – although most commentators think that Farage will seek a Westminster berth closer to home.

***

So where does that leave our local MP Mark Simmonds – 50 earlier this year, and celebrating and clocking up 13 years of “service” as our MP next month

According to Chairman Pete, he should be “worried” about the threat of UKIP at the 2015 general election.

He told Radio Lincolnshire that whilst he “wouldn’t say he wasn’t happy” with our MP – this is known as damning with faint praise – he needed to come to Boston more often.

“I think Mark should be worried, and we have been telling him so now for around two years. So Mark is going to have to be working very, very hard during this next year.”

Mr Bedford said that Mr Simmonds should be more like his fellow Tory MP  in Lincoln, and be in Boston more than just Fridays and weekends.

Whilst it was reported that “a source close to Mark stressed that he needed to be in Westminster in the week to represent Boston in parliament,” there was no clue as to quite what this involved.

And the fact is that the period of “around two years” quoted by Mr Bedford is roughly the same as the MP has been a Foreign Office minister – which sees him out of the country for a lot of the time.

With the political nous for which he is legendary, Mr Bedford said that UKIP’s success in the Europe “didn’t come as a surprise”

“I think the general public really need to get to the bottom though, of what UKIP actually stand for because they don’t publish any policies whatsoever, so nobody really knows what they’re voting for other than, if you like, rejection of Europe.”

And asked what he thought people were voting for, his response was to declare: “That’s the million dollar question, if we knew that we could probably correct it” – which translated means says do whatever we can to cling on to power.

Clearly, he’s a man with his finger on the pulse, and not – as some of you might have thought – the man most likely to have achieved what many thought impossible … which is to make the Boston Bypass Independent party seem not so bad after all.

He said he had a meeting with other regional MPs, and council leaders at Westminster on June 9^th and that if he saw David Cameron he would tell him to bring the referendum forward from 2017.

That’ll do it, then.

Mr Simmonds, meanwhile, has offered a tepid defence in a video interview on the Boston Standard website – largely a party political broadcast coupled with the claim that we should all be grateful and proud that he is the first local MP to achieve ministerial status.

***

In her acceptance speech after taking office we’re told that Boston's new Mayor Alison Austin made an “impassioned” speech calling for enriched community spirit and greater pride in Boston to be at the heart of all the borough council does in the year ahead.

Since no one appears to have asked, shouldn’t this be the case all the time, and without the need for any prompting by stating the obvious?

***

We commented last week on the latest attempt to make the borough council’s feeble fund raising campaign for Boston War Memorial seem as though it was storming along like a mountain stream after the winter snows have melted with a donation by local and county councillor Bob McCauley from his Big Society Fund – which is of course, funded by we taxpayers.

Worryingly, we noted that when doing his party piece for the Boston Daily Mouthpiece, Councillor McAuley commented: “It’s right that there is a public commemoration of the centenary of the start of the First World War, as it will be right that, in four years’ time, we celebrate the centenary of the end of that dreadful conflict.”

What?

Do it all again?

Won’t we have enough obelisks to go on with by then?

***

According to a report last week, two thirds of councillors are male, revealing the extent of sexism faced by women in local government. The research – by the equality organisation, the Fawcett Society, also showed that nine out of ten council leaders are men.

The Society’s Head of policy, Daisy Sands, said: "We have found numerous examples, across the country and from a range of parties, of male councillors making sexist, offensive and derogatory remarks about both women generally and their female colleagues.”

She added: "Local government accounts for almost a quarter of all public spending in the UK but how and where this money is spent is being decided in town halls where an average seven in ten councillors are male."

Here in Boston, where our council can never be accused of trend-setting or being imaginative, we note that the male domination is replicated, with 23 of the 32 members being male – although this balance could be questionable given the number of silly old women claiming to be male councillors

Sadly, we are aware that the accusations that sexist, offensive and derogatory remarks are made from male councillors to their female counterparts are also true in Boston – although fortunately, not rife.

But bearing in mind some of those whom we understand have made such comments, we are not surprised.

 

***

It looks as though someone had a good time at Boston’s Witham Country Park recently – although we’re sure that the borough’s hard working environmental staff would rather that the celebrants took their litter home as the slogan requests.

 

Perhaps the ban on drinking in public places isn’t such a bad idea after all if it prevents eyesores such as this.

***

And speaking of litter … we note that Boston College’s annual art exhibition is being staged at the town’s White Hart.

We don’t know much about art, as the saying goes, but among the exhibits generously described by Boston Borough Council as “works of art” is one of a bicycle leant against a wall – perhaps seen by the artist as symbolic of the town.

Unfortunately, some bright spark intent on publicising the exhibition has stuck up a couple of posters on the former Boston Body Shop window in Mitre Lane.

Given the appalling state of some empty shops in the town centre, the owner of this one redecorated after it became empty so it at least looked presentable.

Which is why a theoretically responsible organisation such as Boston College, should not be setting a bad example which others may possibly follow.

We call it littering – but perhaps in art-speak it might be described as an “installation.”

 

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.

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