Worst Street’s

deafening silence

Whilst the news that Marks and Spencer may be closing our Boston branch with the loss of almost 50 jobs was a shock, to many it perhaps did not come as a  great surprise.

In a news release last Tuesday the company said that the proposal to close the store had not been an easy decision.

But to rub salt into the wound M&S steered us to other nearby outlets including Springfields near Spalding, which we have to say knocks any shopping offer that Boston might believe it has into a cocked hat.

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But there was some quick reaction.

From Clownty Hall the executive member for economy and “place,” Councillor Colin Davie, said: “Our sympathies are with the 49 staff at the store, and, as always, we will work with our colleagues at the job centre and the local council to support those affected.

“Marks and Spencer is a big presence in the town centre, and we’ll play our part in finding a suitable alternative use for this unit, if the closure goes ahead.

“This news is a reflection of the difficulties currently facing high street retailers across the country.

“The future of our high streets is an issue that the council has looked at extensively, and we are ready to help them to evolve away from the traditional, retail-heavy model towards one that’s more fitting for the 21^st century.

“That way we can give them a new lease of life, ensuring our town centres remain vibrant.”

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MP Matt Warman – despite being in the midst of the Brexit debacle – took time to say: “It's deeply disappointing that they are consulting on closing their Boston store, particularly when the manager assured me recently it was one of the most vibrant shops in the region.

“If the closure goes ahead, I'm assured staff will be offered the chance to work elsewhere in the business prior to any redundancy. I will of course work with the Jobcentre and others to seek to make sure that those employees and their families are found new roles as soon as possible if necessary.

Up and down the country high streets are changing, largely because of the internet. Boston is lucky to still have a popular market, a range of independent shops and a council that has invested in putting on a larger number of events in town. These all encourage more visitors that can sustain businesses, and sit alongside the Government's welcome agenda to slash business rates.

“But ultimately we should all, as I try to do, support our local businesses and traders if we want to see them survive. We will miss big retailers if they go – their future is in our hands.

***

That call was echoed by Richard Broadhead, managing director of Oldrids, who reportedly declared: “It goes without saying that the announcement is disappointing news for many people.

“First and foremost, our thoughts are with those whose jobs are at risk as a consequence of the potential closure of the M&S Boston store …

“This news is further evidence, if any were needed, that retail is changing at an unprecedented rate. Trading is currently extremely volatile, highly unpredictable and is proving to be hugely challenging for many retail companies across the UK, not just in Boston. Retailers are facing significant headwinds and must adapt and take difficult decisions as a result.

“We have been trading from Strait Bargate in Boston for over 200 years and our Oldrids town centre store is a hugely important part of our heritage.

“However, the simple fact is that stores such as our own will only exist whilst people support us by shopping locally.”

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A subtext to this emerged just over two years ago after South Kesteven District Council approved a 270,000 sq. ft., £100 million designer village south of Grantham next to the proposed Grantham Southern Relief Road which would create 1,500 jobs and bring 130 luxury brand shops to the town.

The plan was preferred over a rival scheme by Oldrids – which called it “a bid to protect the store’s future and an existing 700 jobs.”

A company executive was reported as saying then: “We are part of Grantham, we are important to Grantham and Grantham is important to us.”

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So where is Boston Borough Council in this debate?

Sitting on its hands with its thumb up its bum and mouth clamped tightly shut apparently.

News such as that from Marks and Spencer is not what they want to hear, so they take a leaf from the ostrich’s book and bury their heads in the sand.

Whilst our MP and Clownty Hall were quick to respond – not that they can probably do much – the silence from Worst Street was deafening.

As we were bedding this edition of Boston Eye down at close of business on Friday (when all good council officers have vanished for the weekend) Worst Street had not said a dicky bird – no comments from senior councillors nor officers.

Why are we not surprised?

We pointed out a couple of weeks ago that with so many highly-paid officers tasked with getting Boston back on its feet, it would be good to hear that they’re actually doing something to earn their keep.

In fact the reverse seems to be the case and they fiddle while Boston burns.

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Reports are also saying that there is a question mark over the future of Boston's Clinton Cards store after the building’s landlord applied for it to be used as a restaurant.

The application claimed that Clintons had given notice they will vacate the property in April.

“The landlord wishes to be able to market the property to a wider range of potential tenants than retailers, and hence this application. With consent for restaurant use in place, this will allow the premises to be marketed to both potential retail operators and potential restaurant operators alike.”

In response, a company spokesman reportedly said that they were in negotiation to renew the lease.
And while we're about it, let's not forget the question mark still hanging over HMV – which only reopened its shop in Boston a few weeks ago.

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It seems to be “tell us what you think time” as Worst Street invites us to comment on its draft budget before councillors rubber stamp it at the full council meeting on 25^th February.

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The council website WorstWeb tells us: “The council now wants your views so it can continue to provide the right services for the right people, making sure it is focused on those services that matter most to you and your family, whilst at the same time delivering services in the most efficient way.”

It goes on to say that “It would really help the council if you could read the draft budget report and appendices … ”

In the spirit of that helpfulness, we clicked on that link ... at www.boston.gov/budgetconsultation2019  ... as late as last Friday and were taken to the website below.

The harbor? City services?

Are we on the page for Boston, Massachusetts?

We surely are.

***

Eventually, we tracked down the 7,600 word report and ten sets of appendices that accompany it and can say with some confidence that this so-called consultation is a complete waste of time.

Whilst it allows the council to claim that it is being open and transparent and seeking reaction from the taxpayers, we suspect that quite a few of our elected representatives won’t bother to read it either, or will give up halfway through without understanding a word of it.

***

Any council worth its salt in the openness department would have produced an easy to follow summary that would help readers understand the broad brush strokes of the draft.

In the arcane way that councils still present these sort of things the document is billed as “Report of Aaron Spencer, finance portfolio holder (author: chief finance officer)” – conjouring up images of a modern day Jeeves/Bertie Wooster arrangement, with the officer in the role of manservant.

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As we reported last week, the budget for 2019/20 proposes a council tax increase of 2.99%  – simplified to make it seem insignificant as an increase for an average band D property of just under 10 pence per week, “with nearly 90% of households paying less than this.”

Just wait until the full bill hits your doormat, when you’ll be able to see just how much you are paying in overall terms!

The increase will yield an extra £192,000 for the council’s kitty – and greedy old BTAC-ky will get an extra £25,600 to continue penalising its residents to spend a fortune on the town centre mainly for the benefit of visitors and shoppers from the wider borough whilst leaving the streets of the taxpayers' patches looking like something from a woodcut by Gustave Doré

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The report looks ahead for the coming five years, and give an interesting insight into its plans for fees and charges – which represent more than 12% of this year's gross income.

One of the outstanding areas for increased charges are leisure services, which will increase by £170,000 by the financial year 2013/24. Whether this will be through increased membership of leisure facilities or merely hiking prices is unclear.

Charges for bereavement service are planned to increase by £122,000 five years from now – or roughly by £25,000 a year.

Anywhere else this would be thought  of as grave robbing.

The cost of collecting trade waste will rise by £102,000 over that time –  another case of shooting fish in a barrel  –  but other charges such as  garden waste collection, parking, market and planning fees remain largely unchanged.

*** 

As this document is supposed to be a consultation, we wonder what it would take by way of responses or suggestion to being about any amendment. Nothing, we suspect.

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Mention of the full council reminds us that the next meeting is tonight –  and guess what? Apparently neither  councillors nor members of the public have tabled any questions for the agenda.

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Still with be “tell us what you think time,” the Police and Crime Commissioner’s survey that we mentioned last week closed on the 16^th  – and as we predicted, people’s fears of crime were being dismissed even before the responses were due in.

As we pointed out last week in the past the survey has made much of identifying our concerns and then promptly dismissing them on the grounds that such fears are imaginary?

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But last week’s alleged murder in Boston brought matters into a sharper focus. Detective Chief Inspector Karl Whiffen from the East Midlands Special Operations Unit told us: “There are extra patrols in the town today to offer re-assurance to residents.”

It has to be said that if patrols were more in evidence on normal days perhaps more would be done to “reassure” us over fears for our safety. 

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Meanwhile on BBC Radio Lincolnshire, Deputy Chief Constable Craig Naylor blamed social media for driving a fear of crime.

“Please be careful what you say,” he pleaded. “Try not to ramp up the hate filled comments. Would you say it to someone’s face?”

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Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones also told the radio station that many people have concerns about crime in Boston but that “the perception outweighs the reality.”

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And in an interview with the Lincolnshire Live website, Mr Jones said he believed that there was a gap between people's perception of violent crime in the Boston area, and the crime statistics.

Pre-empting the outcome of this year’s punters’ quiz, he said: "We launched a large county wide survey last year and what we found is that fear of crime in Boston was far and away bigger than Lincoln, and yet Boston has far less crime.

"I think all of these things have to be kept in perspective. We don't have many criminals preying on members of the public.

"The problem is that we have got to build trust with people who live there – we have not got significant levels of crime in Boston.

"We live in one of the safest counties in the country and Boston is a part of it.”

***

But the report said that in terms of Lincolnshire constituencies, Boston and Skegness had the second highest number of crimes in the county between December 2017 and November 2018 after Lincoln.

Boston and Skegness figures showed 12,531 crimes committed, of which 3,029 were violent or sexual offences.

In Lincoln, there were 15,034 crimes committed, with 3,324 categorised as violent or sexual in nature.

To be honest, we can’t say that we regard this as being “far less crime” than Lincoln proportionately.

The city’s greater population is declared at 130,000 and Boston’s at just fewer than 67,000 – roughly half the size.

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And the report went on to say that crime in Boston and Skegness has gone up significantly in the last year “suggesting a worrying trend.”

“There was a rise of more than 2,000 crimes in 2018 compared to 2017 and violent and sexual offences rose by nearly 1,000.

“So if the number of violent crimes isn't off the scale, is it perhaps the nature of the crimes themselves that is leading to the perception that Boston is a violent place?” the website asked.

It quoted Mr Jones: “Tragic incidents have largely been between people who know each other and goes on behind closed doors.

“We need to intervene early enough to stop that from happening."

Later, he is reported as saying he doesn't necessarily believe the shocking nature of the crimes themselves is colouring people's perception of Boston.

“Anything that's horrible will stand out. We saw a fatal stabbing in Mablethorpe in the summer and we haven't got the same fear in that location.

“Crime happens; it doesn't mean that everybody is unsafe.

“It's a hard message to get across, because you either are scared or you aren't.

“For me, I would rather be trying to tackle the perception of crime than the reality of crime.

“There have been a significant amount of people coming in to the area in the last ten years which is unsettling everybody; it will take time to adjust to that."

***

All this waffle comes after two incidents in less than two weeks, which left four people dead.

So is it any wonder that people are ill at ease?

The obvious reason why residents of Mablethorpe are less fearful of violent crime must surely be because it is the exception, rather than the rule.

***

In Boston, we are fearful because violent crime appears to be moving ever closer.

The most recent incident occurred in the street – in the town centre and the public gaze.

How many times over the years have we read of have-a-go-heroes whose valiant attempts to help have seen them become victims?

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People in Boston are worried for a reason, and to try to give us an imaginary whiff of sal volatile to cure our imaginary ills is to ignore the obvious,

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Talking of perceptions – what is it about the way Boston is seen by outsiders?

Recently, actor Rob Lowe patronisingly declared after a few days filming the TVcop drama Wild Bill in Boston “The faces here are amazing. The old people look like they are in a documentary about Armistice Day!

“It's that unbelievable, weathered, proud, proper English working class look.”

Last week, in the run-up to the Brexit vote, the Times sent a reporter to Boston “on a freezing cold, drizzly day in the town’s market.”

The fact that it was neither especially cold nor drizzly aside, the reporter interviewed a number of people – none of whom was pictured, yet published a photo of a local person that they didn’t bother to interview. 

What might have influenced their choice, we wonder?

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Last week we reported on the claim that Boston was bucking the trend with new businesses – whilst statistics contradicting that claim were somehow omitted.

The same piece of news on WorstWeb reported that “a project is underway to make Boston an ‘EV charging town’ attracting visitors to a vehicle charging stop-off location.”

Brilliant, we thought, innovative, imaginative.

Then we saw a question tweeted to East Lindsey – which is already doing the same thing – thanks to a £64,000 grant acquired at the end of last year.

It was part funded through the Government’s Onstreet Residential Chargepoint Scheme, with the rest provided by Chargemaster – who are supplying the charging points. The district council is putting £38,000 into the project.

This will make charging points available in Louth, Mablethorpe, Skegness, Alford, Spilsby, Horncastle, Woodhall Spa and Coningsby, with the work scheduled to start last month.

On the same subject, there are already 55 charging points in and around Lincoln as well as Grantham, Sleaford, Spalding and Bourne … the list goes on forever.

Oh, and there are two at the Boston Renault dealership in Boston.

Let this be our refrain – where other Lincolnshire councils lead, Boston is sure to follow some way behind.

And only a few days ago it was reported that seven new charging points for electric cars, which would cost thousands of pounds to install, are being proposed for South Holland, where the district council is looking to install charging machines in Holbeach, Pinchbeck, Sutton Bridge, Crowland and several locations in Spalding.

SHDC hopes it won’t have to pay for the installation. – instead it will bid for funding of up to £7,500 or 75% for the installation of each machine, and will seek to fund the remaining 25% per cent through private sector electric vehicle installers.

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Our first blog of the New Year  reported some harshly critical remarks by Councillor Anton Dani after his former colleagues in the Bostonian Independent Group called on him to resign to prompt a by-election after quitting as BiG leader to join the Conservative group.

His comments prompted a call for the right of reply from the remaining BiGgers – leader Councillor Barrie Pierpoint and Brian Rush – who declared them to be “misleading, factually incorrect and bordering on exaggeration.”

Their response went on: “Councillor Dani in our opinion was never marginalised.

“He was the Leader, and was kept in the loop with everything, at all times as were all the other members.

“He was a good talker, but really did nothing to contribute to the development of BiG nor its behind the scenes administration/operation.

“He did not contribute to any workload, all of that was done for him.

“I am sorry to say he did lack leadership skills, and preferred to wait for others to make things happen, Anton was a follower not a leader.

“Councillor Rush nor Councillor Pierpoint made any nasty comments towards him at all, like in any group there was harmless and humorous banter amongst ourselves,  and we can only assume that is what he is referring to.

“The comment made by Councillor Dani which he referred was made by Councillor Rush about Councillor Dani, and his "Eastern European friends", this was completely untrue; however what was suggested by Councillor Rush, was that "BiG" through Councillor Dani, should encourage our new residents to join with us, in this new type of politics that is called inclusion and engagement!

“The only reason Councillor Pierpoint ever cut across Councillor Dani was when he would waffle on for ages on topics not related to the discussions at the meeting as he liked the sound of his own voice, everyone was getting bored of it and at one time he was told to get to the point.

“Councillor Pierpoint had no ambition to be Leader and still has not, due to his business commitments and work outside the area.

“Councillor Dani was invited to take the post, as he worked locally, and he accepted, without any issues or questions.

“Councillor Pierpoint has never tried to join the Conservative Party in fact we have since found out it was Councillor Dani who applied to join them in 2015, but was rejected, so he joined UKIP.

“Councillor Pierpoint also supported Councillor Rush whilst he was going through a difficult time in his Mayorship.

“In fact he made a scathing speech at a full council meeting last year against all those councillors who for no real reason attacked Councillor Rush by trying to get him to resign.

“In fact Councillor Pierpoint got a rousing applause from the public at the end of his speech for supporting Councillor Rush.

“So everything Councillor Dani has stated is factually incorrect!

“We need to see fair play and proper justice!

“Again it is he 'the Councillor' who has let his constituents down!

“This councillor, (and some of his colleagues), slagged off other Councillors, for jumping ship from one party to another, and then he did exactly the same as those he condemned.

“Councillor Rush did not want to be the Leader so Councillor Pierpoint has taken on the role till the May elections.

“For the record the Electoral Commission wrote to all BiG councillors stating they would not let Bostonian Independent Group deregister as a political party, which was a mistake and bad advice from the Electoral Commission, because Councillor Dani has not resigned to them in writing.

“Technically and legally he is still the Leader of BiG today and cannot stand in the local elections for the Conservatives or be a member of their Party until he does resign in writing as Leader of BiG.

“As always there are two sides to a story.”

Editor’s note: Both sides have now had their say on this matter, so no further contributions will be accepted.

  

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