The virtual hands in the air at last night’s full meeting of Boston Borough Council were not waving – they were drowning.

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After months of discussion and recent short-term attempts at persuasion, councillors spent hours debating the proposed merger with East Lindsey District Council – which had simultaneously been debating the same proposal and approved it by 46 votes for, two against, four abstentions and with three councillors absent.

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But Boston – as is so often the case – delivered its customary turgid performance before collapsing at the final hurdle.

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Whilst it seemed that quite a few favoured an alliance, the issue in Boston was the timing.

The proposal called for it to take effect on 20^th July – in just over five weeks’ time, when our current chief executive Phil Drury would be paid off and other senior Boston officers would assume roles within a merged council.

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But an amendment before last night’s meeting called for things to be delayed for at least six months so that everyone could have a good old natter about it first.

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What followed was as masterclass in how not to hold a meeting – especially when the taxpayers were able to follow the whole thing live, and if they missed it watch it later on YouTube.

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To cut a long story short – the vote on the amendment tied 14:14 after it proved impossible to obtain a response from Councillor Viven Edge.

Mayor Anton Dani then cast his deciding vote against the amendment, which meat that the debate defaulted to whether or not to vote for the proposal.

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Cue uproar.

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Demands to have another crack at contacting Councillor Edge to get her vote were denied, because the mayor’s casting vote had closed the matter, so councillors rambled and haggled over other ideas – eventually deciding to amend the defeated amendment by changing the talk time from six to seven months … which made it err, a new amendment.

Are you following it so far ...?

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Amid all this came the disclosure by a face-masked Councillor Alison Austin, that an equally masked Councillor Edge was with her – a claim confirmed by twirling her computer to present the ‘absent’ councillor on-screen.

Quite what we make of this in these days of Covid-19 is for others to decide.

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So, the amended amendment was put to the vote – but not before a warning from deputy leader Councillor Nigel Welton, that approval would kill the proposed alliance “dead in the water” and that a six-month delay would render it null and void.

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Well, seven months, actually – but if all of the wasn’t bizarre enough for you, and final twist was yet to come.

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The amended amendment went through – and no sooner had the vote been declared than Councillor Welton proposed that the original motion – the one for the strategic alliance, remember (we’ll be asking questions afterwards) be withdrawn.

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That was approved – and so hours of debate by the cabinet, the corporate and community scrutiny committee, the chief officer employment panel as well as last night’s dog-hanging – not to mention months of time talking between the two councils was just so much waste of time.

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It’s the second time Boston has been down this route – the first was more than a decade ago when it pulled out of a three-way merger with South Holland and East Lindsey at the eleventh hour.

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Then, things just went on much as before – although the two councils that combined back-office services declared the move to be beneficial.

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Certainly, there now seems little chance that Boston will ever be considered as a future partner by anyone.

As we have often said, it is one of the smallest local authorities in the country, which makes it expensive to run – and which puts it at risk when economies are being considered higher up the chain.

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Boston’s track record as a council is not impressive, either – and despite all the talk of its status and heritage by councillors last night, we think that it won’t be that long before the writing is on the wall for the borough.

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Despite the dissatisfaction over the timescale for the alliance, if you are drowning, you don’t ask a would-be rescuer to wait six months before handing you a lifeline.

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In sporting terms, last night’s meeting relegated Boston to somewhere near the bottom of the Also-Ran Local Council League – with no hope of a play-off in sight to spare them from disaster.

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East Lindsey – quick off the mark as usual – published its reaction to the Boston debacle this morning.

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“The proposed Strategic Alliance - a plan that would have saved Boston Borough Council and East Lindsey District Council £15.4m over the next 10 years through a shared workforce - will not be progressed at this time.

“Whilst East Lindsey District Council strongly supported the proposal when it met last night, Boston Borough Council withdrew the item from its agenda after a number of hours of debate.

“The Leader of East Lindsey District Council, Councillor Craig Leyland, said: "It is disappointing that Boston Borough Council didn't agree to enter into a strategic alliance. East Lindsey District Council is a strong, stable and successful organisation and we will continue to work hard to improve services to our communities, whilst continuing to explore further partnership working opportunities that add value to what we do."

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And an East Lindsey councillor e-mailed us to say: “Well, was I watching Billy Smart’s Circus or Boston Borough Council?

“What a sham. Should the officer at least have rung Councillor Edge who went off line. This would have stopped a casting vote.

“As one councillor suggested, contact should have been made with her.

“In fact, she had made an attempt to vote and indeed had gone to another councillor’s house to vote.

“I must cancel my Netflix subscription and pay to watch Boston Borough Council instead”.

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Whither now?

We suspect that all that’s left is for Boston taxpayers to grin and bear it whilst our hard-earned cash is spent on redundancy payments and the like.

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Finally, we cannot end without commenting on the overall quality of the meeting.

Despite almost fifteen years of reporting on the to-ings and fro-ings at Worst Street this is the first chance we have had to see our “representatives” in action.

And what a shower, as the late Terry-Thomas would say.

Some of them were barely articulate, while others – some of them long enough in service to know better – failed to grasp how the meeting should be run.

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It was overall an unedifying experience which left us appalled by what we saw, and sapped what little faith that might have remained in our representatives still further.

Extra:  2pm

The decision not to go ahead has annoyed Boston and Skegness MP Matt Warman, who tweeted: “It’s a profoundly short-sighted decision that risks making the council unsustainable,

“I hope they will reconsider it as soon as possible.

“Taxpayers deserve efficiency above partisan politics.”

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Meanwhile, sources in East Lindsey have expressed dismay over the Boston meeting.

Not only are people unhappy with the outcome, one member called the decision to try to intervene in the role of the proposed joint chief officer “a disgrace” whilst another comment said that Boston residents deserved better from their councillors.

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However, it is felt at all might not be lost.

Something opponents of the alliance failed to take on board was that as the motion to adopt it was not defeated, it can be brought back to the table quite quickly.

Had it been defeated, the rules say that it could not have been raised again for six months.

But as opponents didn’t push a vote, it’s thought that we could see it back on the agenda sooner rather than later.

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Again, observers at Manby believe that opponents in Boston completely ignored concerns for the future and hope that they may still come to their senses … as they believe that joining forces would create a line in the sand where future attempts at devolution are concerned.

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