Last week’s Boston Eye made much mention of Central Park – soon to be a dumping ground for tons of sand as one of the many beach days now staged in almost every large town in the county.

Central Park is now the domain of the lamentable Boston Town Centre Area Committee – BTAC-ky as it is unpopularly nicknamed.

According to Boston Borough Council – and who could not believe every word it says – “Boston Big Local will again fund this year's event and it will be supported by partner agencies … Mayflower Housing, Boston Children's Centre, Transported Arts and Boston United in the Community.”

This is exactly what we were told last year except for a line to say that the event was “delivered” by Boston Borough Council.

We hope that this will not see a repeat of last year, when well after the event, the council’s accounts showed that it splashed out £5,150 from the revenue budget for the “construction of beach in park” plus £700 to hire four donkeys for two days and £500 for bouncy castle hire – with the last two appearing under the unlikely heading “sports development.”

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We still aren’t entirely clear about the affiliations of Boston Big Local – which has £1 million of lottery money to blow over ten years allegedly to benefit  the town’s poorest wards …  most of which are in the town centre – although the  money is being spread over a much broader area and often for the benefit of visitors rather than residents.

Then there is the matter of the ground rules under which the Big Local is supposed to operate.

We were told at the organisation’s inception: “It’s not about your local authority, the government or a national organisation telling you what to do.

“It’s not about individual groups fixing their favourite problem without talking to a wide range of different people who live and work in the community.”

This was underlined by a member of the South Lincolnshire Community Voluntary Service at the time as well.

 “There’s no government arm in Boston involved in any of this. It is totally community led ...”

“This money will not be dictated by Boston Borough Council; it will not be dictated by the CVS.  It will be totally dictated by the local community. We are absolutely there to galvanise this community into action. It is their say where this money is spent”

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So far, so unambiguous – yet the group admits quite openly “Boston Big Local has developed a fruitful partnership with Boston Borough Council. The council has been very positive and supportive of resident priorities and bringing added value to Boston Big Local’s investment.”

Big Local in return tells us that it “supports projects in Central Park as part of our commitment to improving local amenities and open spaces in the Boston Big Local area.

“To help improve and increase play opportunities, we sponsored a basketball hoop in the park which was funded in Year 1 of the Boston Big Local plan.

“More recently, the Croquet Club was awarded £500 of funding from Boston Big Local to repair the perimeter fencing at the club.”

This is all very well, but it does seem that the “fruitful” partnership is one of golden apples for the benefit of Boston Borough Council and BTAC-ky  – who are the unquestionable owners and managers of Central Park.

Big Local also sponsors much of Boston in Bloom including provision of planters which were once the responsibility of Worst Street – although we understand that the council allows Boston in Bloom the use of its bank account for the organisation’s accounting and payment purposes.

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Another future event in Central Park is an open-air cinema.

Friday 25^th August will see the screening of Mary Poppins with Despicable Me being shown the following night. 

Ironically, given the Worst Street attitude to drinking in the park, the event will include a licensed bar – which is made even more fickle as the films being shown are both aimed at children.

We’ve mentioned before the agility with which Worst Street bends the rules for its own benefit – note the impending German beer festival in October … an event practically dedicated to getting paralytic.

Not so in Woodhall Spa – where the rules are there to be obeyed.

A couple of weeks before the Boston event, the Kinema in the Woods is showing Dirty Dancing in the grounds of Jubilee Park Swimming Pool, but makes it clear that whilst visitors are welcome to bring their own picnic, “alcohol is not permitted due to the Jubilee Park's licence.”

How much more sensible would it have been had Boston Borough Council followed that example, which would have underlined the rules that apply in Central Park.

One other thing …

As we are well aware, Worst Street is not top of the list when it comes to forward planning …

Information from the Kinema screening for 12^th August tells us “the doors will open at 8.45pm. The film will start at approximately 9.15pm depending on light levels...”

No such foresight here in Boston … where the publicity blurb tells us “gates open 6.30pm. Film from 7.30pm.”

Sunset in Boston on Friday 25^th August is 8.05pm – thirty five minutes after the show begins.

If it’s a bright summer evening, then the film may be a little difficult to see – and we just hope that the layout will not finds the audience facing west into the setting sun …

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One event that appears to be progressing swimmingly is the citizen-driven plan to provide something memorable for Christmas lighting in Boston this year.

The group has met its target of raising £10,000 which means that matched funding will be forthcoming from BTAC-ky – despite what we heard about vague attempts to wriggle out of the promise.

But it seems that the jobsworths are still determined to have their day.

Part of the planning includes attaching lights and motifs on the street lamps around the Market Place – which happened almost every year until winter 2015.

But Lincolnshire County Council has now told the organisers that they cannot use the lamp standards because of concerns over their structural safety.

Now, the organisers have asked  why in previous years were the installations allowed but not this year; were permissions not sought in previous years – and if not why not?

And the big question being asked is: “Have the conditions of the lamp standards deteriorated so quickly since 2015?

“If so should the council consider closing the Market Place until safety checks can be carried out?”

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We can’t remember how many times we have mentioned the re-writing of history as far as the Pilgrim Fathers’ story is concerned.

Boston seems to genuinely believe that the town played an important role in all of this – something that the historical record shows clearly to be untrue.

Nevertheless by the time of the 400^th anniversary of the Fathers’ arrival in the New World millions of pounds will have been poured into marking the occasion – and still it doesn't seem to be enough.

A recent application by Plymouth's Mayflower team asked for a £4.7 million grant from the lottery fund, which would have contributed towards the cost of a network connecting Plymouth with Dartmouth, Southampton, Southwark, Southend, Harwich, Lincoln, Scrooby, Babworth, Gainsborough, Boston, Austerfield and Doncaster.

Despite a reputation for wasting money by the cartload, the lottery people turned the idea down – although the bidders say that they are still committed to making the trail a reality.

We ran the proposed marathon through a route planned which outline a 1,000 mile jaunt between nowhere much and nowhere in particular – and quite who would want to undertake it is anyone’s guess.

But given the planners’ determination to make this pointless marathon a reality, we wonder how long before it will be before some wiseguy on BTAC-ky suggests that Worst Street chips in a few thousand or so.

Not that there appears to be any shortage of cash. Last month the Arts Council for England committed £16 million – £4 million a year – to arts organisations in Plymouth between 2018 to 2022 to deliver “stunning” heritage, cultural programming and arts projects that will form a key part of the city’s Mayflower 400 calendar.

And last year, the partnership received £500,000 from the chancellor, which has been used to develop the international marketing, a new website, itineraries and "new visitor product" nationally.

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We note with interest that a crowdfunding appeal is to be launched to try to raise £1,000 to hold a teenage market in Boston next year.

The Worst Street website informs us: “The idea was originally suggested by the council's Prosperous Boston Task and Finish Group which has been looking at ways to make Boston better for residents and visitors.”

Yes, we remember the Preposterous Boston group – a self-appointed band that mouthed off for a while and then fell strangely silent.

But to put the record straight … Preposterous Boston did not originally suggest the idea.

It was first mentioned in March last year in none other than Boston Eye, when we reported: “Not that long ago a teenage market was started in Kettering with support from the borough council and was so successful that it is now being copied in other areas – Sleaford will be hosting its second such market in May with 16 traders and the same number of performers.”

At that time Prosperous Boston was discussing plans to combine the Wednesday markets in Wide Bargate – and free up the great stone desert as an “events space” with one or two events a week during the summer to attract visitors.

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Since we started our mini campaign for better local news coverage of Boston, we have lost count of the number of times we have pasted the hashtag #notabostonstory on links posted under the Boston Target Twitter banner.

Apparently the term for this is clickbait.

A link is offered purporting to be to a local story and it is only once the site is visited that it is found to have nothing to do with the area at all.

But by then the site owners have the benefit of the traffic generated by the visit which helps boost the popularity statistics which in turn are used to govern advertising charges.

It’s certainly profitable for the publisher involved – but not for the cheated reader.

We have followed links to stories in Grimsby, and even out of the county in Nottinghamshire or Norfolk – and often under coy headline such as “We bet that hurt …” or “Heartbreaking…”

The Target feed is linked to that of Lincolnshire Live – which is part of the Lincolnshire Echo group.

It also offers a site called In Your Area which claims to offer local news related to your postcode. But when we entered ours, the “local” content on offer soon petered out.

The site promotion material tells us: “Lincolnshire Live is powered by the reporting team behind the Lincolnshire Echo, Target Series and Retford Times.

“We’ve been at the heart of our communities since 1893 and our mission is the same now as it’s always been – to be a fresh voice covering all the stories that matter to you from across our great county.

“From in-depth news to what’s on information and exclusive sports stories, our website is brought to you by people who are passionate about Lincolnshire and what this area has to offer.”

It sounds good, and it would be all right if it made clear that the stories were countywide – and not fobbing us off with the suggestion that they are local to us.

To its credit, the Boston Sub-Standard declines to mislead its readers in this shoddy way and offers mainly Boston stories on its Twitter feed.

Our only other source of so-called news is the Boston Borough Council Bulletin which collates items from its website once a week into good news pabulum almost entirely irrelevant to Boston Borough Council which is therefore neither use nor ornament.

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Finally that sign that the silly season has arrived again has come with an item in the Boston Sub-Standard promoting CCTV pictures released by Worst Street to try to identify people caught littering, spitting, urinating and fly-tipping in the town.

The Standard tells us that men were all captured on the council’s CCTV system and the authority would like to know who they are and where they live so it can speak to them.

“It forms part of the council’s Name and Shame campaign.”

We encounter this every year when news is hard to find – and of course, one thing it is not is a “name and shame” campaign, since no-one is ever named, and as far as we know has never been shamed either.

Attempts at catching these people might also have had more chance of success had Worst Street not been so backward in coming forward.   The offenders pictured were snapped on April 17^th   May 24^th and 28th and June 12^th.

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And talking of silly seasons, Worst Street goes a bit quiet at this time of year – more so than usual – so we'll take a break as well, and be back in mid-August.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com   

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

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